Question 7

Q7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

During all the phases of our final production we have kept in mind what we learnt from our disastrous attempt at a preliminary task. We managed to get better at camerawork and editing.
The following shots show how we have applied the techniques that we learnt in class first in the preliminary task and then how we expended that knowledge into our final production. 

  This is the starting shot in our preliminary, it depicts a character in the moment of exiting the lift; we decided to use this shot as it was unusual and it leant an air of mystery to the character.

In this first shot of our final piece you can observe Connor walking through the graveyard to the gravestone. There are notable differences in the camera usage: for one the use of lighting is much better in the second image, this was done by actually shooting the film from a decent angle and not against the light as in the first one; this increases the sharpness of the image and makes it feel more polished and professional.

This shot is the beginning of the match-on-action shot that we incorporated into our preliminary: it’s simply a shot of the character’s hand approaching and grabbing the door handle and then a quick shot to the other side of the door to show that he’s going through.

This is the match-on-action shot present in our final piece: it depicts the killer hitting the victim with a stone; as you can see the quality of the camera is much better as we decided to forgo the provided cameras and arm ourselves with an HD camera. The shots are edited together to create a fast paced sequence, culminating with the victim being knocked out. Moreover we decided to not use any transitions in the sequence and just use a series of fast cuts that enhance the tension as opposed to the rather mellow version of the prelim that employed a cross-fade transition.

The main bulk of the prelim was the depiction of one of the characters walking down a corridor; this shot was rather long and was a real turn off for the viewer.

 

We found ourselves with a very similar problem in the final production: however we resolved the issue by accelerating the pace of an otherwise boring sequence by introducing fast cutaways of trains running, this links back into the theme of the film and jars the audience and is a clear foreshadow of what is to come later in the film. Moreover we turned the sound from these cutaways right up as loud as it could go to further accelerate the pace and force the viewer to pay close attention to the following, critical, shots.

This the over-shoulder shot that we had in our preliminary; however we didn’t take into consideration some aspects of the production: for example the lighting is really poor quality, resulting in a grainy effect on the film, also we didn’t notice at the time of filming that there were people around that accidentally got on film.

These are the shots from the actual production: as you can see the quality of the camera and the lighting is far superior to the prelim and looks polished and professional.

 During the filming aspect of our preliminary we made good use of the 180^* rule by filming our shots from the same side of the corridor and by not crossing the line.  

We ported that skill over to the actual production by keeping faithful to the rule, however we noticed that due to the relatively stationary shot in our preliminary it looked boring and static: consequently we decided to try and move up the action by using a different variety of shot angles and distances while remaining faithful to the 180^* rule.

Planning:
To try and make the final production look as good as possible we tried to plan every detail of the production before we filmed it. To this end we first found a good location for the production, a member of the group knew of a good place for our thriller and so we found it on Google Maps as shown in this image.
 

 Here you can see the filming location from an aerial prospective: this helped us to decide where to position the camera and the actors before actually visiting the location; by doing this we reduced the time it would take for us to get into position and thus increased the quality of our time management.

 

Question 6

Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the production and editing phases of the intro I have learnt to use many new technologies: these range from the camera work itself, to the use of Blogger to record my progress, passing through the IMovie and FinalCut that we used to edit the production.

SOFTWARE:

·          Blogger was maybe the most used tool at our disposal, we used this free online blogging service to record our progress throughout the production. Every time we came up with an idea or we modified a previous one we would post it on our blogs. This was useful as it makes keeping track of progress much easier.

·        We used IMovie to edit all our production, it is easy to use and relatively user friendly: this means that we managed to use it without extensive knowledge of similar programs unlike programs like Sony Vegas Pro. With this software we learnt how to import film clips into the main directory and how to piece them together to form a coherent whole; moreover we learnt how to remove any diegetic sound that we didn’t want in the production and how to add non-diegetic sound to increase the tension of a particular shot or to emphasise an event in the production. We also learnt how to effectively insert transitions and effects throughout the intro, this was done to give the shot a mellower or sharper contour to emphasise the emotions or events portrayed.

·         FinalCut was used to create navigation menus inside our production to make it feel more polished and professional, in addition to that we used this software to burn our production onto a disk.

·         We used both YouTube and Vimeo to present our production to the public; we did this by uploading it and then promoting it on social networks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EQUIPMENT

·          We used both the camera provided us by the school and a private one to film out production; to ensure that we managed to get the best quality shots and sequences we did more than one take.
Camera work is, as expected, the vital component in any production and so we decided to research anything that could potentially help us to deliver a better experience. To this end we tried to mix up the types of shots that we used in the intro. These ranged from simple straight cuts from one scene to another to pan shots that take into consideration the entire scene without interruption, passing through overhead or low down shots to emphasise the insignificance or the power of characters respectfully.

 

·          The tripod has been a staple in our field work since the preliminary task; we used this invaluable piece of equipment to take accurate and steady shots throughout the production as opposed to unstable, shaky hand-held shots. This makes the production look and feel much more professional.

·         Prior to us shooting the production we went to the sites where we were planning to shoot and took many pictures to give us an idea of the lighting and the best places to film in: this really helped with time management as when we actually got there to film the production we could do so without waiting to find the best place.

 

Question 5

Q5: How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract our audience we tried to make the intro as entertaining and polished-looking as possible.
We started off by creating a professional logo for our fictional production company, the logo is JJCM productions, and we used this as the letters represent the initials of the names of the people that participated in the media group that created the production.

 

The tone of the intro is set very early on in the production due to the presence of the fast moving train as the first shot to be shown.

 

The presence of this very fast paced shot so early in the production shows that the intro is going to be somewhat fast paced and due to the fact that the train shots are a recurring patters throughout the production this helps keep a sense of continuity. In addition to that, during the editing, we took off any music on these train shots and instead increased the diegetic sound to jar the audience when it came to those shots. Also we decided to increase the whiteness of these shots to make them stand out from the production and thus make them more memorable and increase the jarring effect for the audience.
 

 

The use of the close up in this shot, after seeing Connor walk up to the grave, gives a sense of claustrophobia as the audience is forced to get very close to the gravestone itself, this is mostly an uncomfortable experience for most people and that was the effect we were trying to recreate. Also the darker effect that we placed on the shots in the graveyard makes the tone darker, as well as helping convey the feeling of sorrow through to the audience.

This shot was taken by placing the camera on a dolly on wheels, this ensured that we could have a relatively stable shot while moving forward at the same time: this forward movement, coupled with the fact that the victim is turned away from the camera creates a sense of dread as the audience doesn’t know what is going to happen, it’s however clear that the result is going to be bad and possibly fatal.

  This shot is at the culmination of the chase sequence, when the audience’s attention is more focused after a series of actions shots, and depicts the assailant about to hit Annabelle with a rock.
The shots in this sequence have been edited together very fast in order to create a build-up of tension that will then decrease over the remainder of the intro as the victim is knocked out and therefore unable to prevent the subsequent events.
This shot hits home as it shows that the assailant has no remorse over what he is about to do, also the fact that the victim is powerless to do anything about it shows his dominance over her.

  This shot that follows immediately after the action sequence portrayed before shows the assailant demonstrating his superiority over the victim as he stands over her. The fact that the victim is passed out and tied down, combined with the very low positioning of the camera in relation to the actors increases this sentiment further.

At the end of the flashback and the production we return to the graveyard for a repetition of the first shot to really hammer the message home. These shots, differently from the ones used at the beginning, have been slowed down considerably to create an air of finality to the production and to reinforce the theme of death that runs as an undercurrent throughout the intro.

To understand what the audience wanted from our production we passed out a questionnaire that should reflect their preferences. We found out that our audience mainly watched thriller, comedy and horror films; as such we decided to apply some of these themes to the production. The comedic and horror elements are not present in the intro but, if we had time to finish the production, would have surfaced later in the film.

This is one of the questions we passed out, it shows that a large percentage of the questioned do not stream movies, however still is a healthy amount of people that do stream online. Due to this fact, had we finished the entire production we would have uploaded the production to one of the many streaming sites available: for example www.1channel.ch or www.10starmovies.com .

 When asked if the target audience wanted to see a film with death in it they unanimously said yes; consequently we decided to not only place death as a powerful undercurrent into the production but also to make the death you see in the intro very memorable and easy to distinguish from other productions.

 

 

Our target audience responded to this question in a way that tells us that we needed to make the plot more difficult to follow; however we were hampered by a severe time limit restriction so we couldn’t explore the various themes and ideas we had for a full blown film. However, as we wanted to make this intro as close to what our target audience wanted to see as possible, we decided to make the plot a little more obscure to follow than we could have: this is done by introducing the title (Kate’s Revenge) as a premonition that something bad is going to happen to the killer. To this extent we also used the voiceover that increases the amount of mystery surrounding the killing.

After the production was edited and burned onto disk we showed it to our target audience, the response we received has been overall good: he audience praised the return to the very beginning of film-making with the theme of death on the rail tracks, in addition to that they also liked the use of the voiceover that we used and the good use of context when using a poem that relates back to the title of the film.
However the audience identifies some key elements that act as a detriment to the overall production: namely the fact that in a couple of shots the tripod is clearly visible, or the use, throughout the beginning shots of a low quality camera that really brings down the quality of the whole production; however this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that we used a different high quality camera for the last, more important, shots.

 

Question 4

Q4: Who would the audience be for your media product?

Our target audience is a mixed male and female population between the ages of 15 and 18. This can be seen by identifying the themes that run through our production. Revenge, as identified in the title, is a popular theme with the target audience and also a common element in other thrillers: this would attract a high amount of people due to the popularity of the genre and the themes expressed in the production. The theme of male dominance would attract a decisively male audience, while the theme of feminine vengeance expressed by the title “Kate’s Revenge” would attract a female audience.

We decided to aim our product at this audience after we asked people from that age and gender group to complete a questionnaire.
The results of our survey indicated that the majority of the people we asked to complete the questionnaire favoured a comedy, horror or thriller film. This can be seen in the table below.

 Following up on the survey results we decided to keep faithful to what our target audience wanted and inserted a motif of horror by making an allusion to what might happen after the events of the opening. This is done by making the title “Kate’s Revenge”, implying a paranormal return of the victim to exact her revenge. However we decided to forgo the comedic aspect as we thought that inserting jokes or a comic character it would decrease the seriousness and the overall tension in the production. If we could continue with the production we could have inserted some comic relief moments, but only much alter in the complete film as to not ruin the initial sense of foreboding and dread found in the intro.

As with any film, our production needs an age rating; these are given out from the BBFC (the British Board of Film Classifications), the age ratings are divided into different categories and all have different required properties to attain one of the categories. These categories are:

The U rating indicates that the film is suitable for any audience; this includes underage or very young people.

The PG rating means that generally the film will be suitable for any age rating, however children under 8 would be discouraged from viewing and if they do only when accompanied by an adult.

 

 

This rating indicates that the film can be viewed by a 12 year old only if accompanied an under the supervision of an adult; this is a variation of the 12 age rating that does not require the presence of an adult to view.

This age rating shows that only people over 15 can view the production.

This rating shows that only adults can view this film. The variation of this rating is the R18 that is only used with pornographic productions.

 We believed that our production would be classed as a 12, however: if we had been allowed to continue with our production we would have introduced concepts that exceed the 12 boundaries such as horror. For this reason we have bumped the rating up to a 15.

·         This is a picture of our typical audience member.
Following is a brief annotation of the character of this audience member.

·         He has headphones on, this indicates that he is interested in music and regularly listens to it.
Probably listens to the popular genre of the moment.

·         Smartly clothed, indicates a monetary security and that he wants to fit in with a higher echelon of society.

·         The lanyard indicates that he works in a big company that expects professionalism; this is also shown by his attire.

 

Question 3

Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

This is our production logo; we used the initials of our names (James Craig, James Parronchi, Connor Marshall and Matthew Bostock) because we thought that it lent the production a more personal and down to earth feel to it. 

We took inspiration for the title screen from companies like Regency, Future productions or Terror films that have a similar theme to their title screens. 

Production companies have the role of fundraisers for the production: namely coming up with the money to complete the production. They also handle the budgeting, scheduling and influx of talent and resources to the production.

For our production we were thinking of using a company like Regency to produce and distribute our full production. This decision stems from the number of Thrillers that they have produced that have similar themes to ours and that I personally think inspired some of the attitudes adopted in our production: for example the continuous sense of dread that hangs over the entire production. Examples of these thrillers are Tigerland and Falling Down.

We originally wanted to place our title credits on the sleeper tracks and have a pan shot of them to relate back to the theme of the film, however we were unable to follow through with that plan and we resorted to writing the titles on planks of wood and propping them up on the locomotive that was on site. The titles appear in the production at a very specific time: the names of the actors appear just before they are shown in the intro.

We used this technique to both introduce the characters and make it clear to the viewer who it was that they were observing on screen. We introduce first the actors, then the people that filled the various production, editing and narrative aspects of the production.

Question 2

Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Any type of media needs to address a particular audience, and to do this is needs to portray particular social groups in such a way that is appealing to them.   
In our final production we have inserted characters that have some similarities to characters from other thrillers; these characters represent their respective social groups in such a way to make then more appealing to their group. 

This is a picture of our female victim; she is standing on the platform waiting for the train. In this picture she could represent any one social class as she doesn’t obviously belong in any.

Similarities can be drawn between the female victim character in the thriller “Psycho” and our production: both victims have no distinctive social class and as such can be related to by a larger population. This use, in both productions, of a weak female character could attract a more male oriented population and as such this selection of weak characters also reflects on the general male dominant social group.
On the other hand our title is (Kate’s Revenge) implies that our victim will somehow make an appearance later in the film: either by having a medium through which to express her story, for example having a lawyer looking into the events that transpired in the intro, or by manifesting in a more supernatural way. This can help represent a more female oriented social group by showing that the main victim character can in fact be a force to be reckoned with.

The dominant character in the production however is the killer: we deliberately masked him to lend an air of mystery and dread to his figure.
He exerts his dominance throughout the intro by physically imposing himself over the female victim and through his reactions to the victim’s struggles. His dominance represents a very male oriented social group.

Our killer can be compared to Hannibal Lecter, the infamous serial killer from “The Silence of the Lambs” as he shares with him several attributes: these boing that neither feels any remorse for committing their respective actions, this is shown by Lecter’s predilection for eating his victims and in a more subtle way our protagonist by calmly looking down at his victim after he has knocked her out and ties her to the tracks. Also our killer chooses a very unusual way of killing his victim and so does Lecter (i.e. eating them).

Question 1

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

A thriller is a popular genre of film that uses as its core elements a high amount of suspense, tension and excitement. These elements are used in conjunction with a plot that tends to be very antagonist-driven; this means that the main character is usually pitted against an intelligent, resourceful and ruthless villain. In more than one occasion it could be argued that the better scripted and portrayed characters are the antagonists: this makes the protagonist seem outclassed by the antagonist and makes every encounter these characters have much more intense.
There are many sub-genres of thrillers as shown in this wordle.

Though all these sub-genres differ from each other they all have some conventions that define them as thrillers; some of these are:

•    Death is omnipresent in a thriller; usually the protagonist faces death or someone that they care about
•          The main storyline often has a mystery that must be solved for the events of the thriller to make sense.
•         A common element in thrillers is the presence of innocence in some of the characters, and the subsequent loss of innocence due to the events in the story.
•          The conflict between antagonist and protagonist must not be limited to a physical one but transcend into a mental one. This makes sure that the action is not only dominated by physicality, otherwise the story and action would become repetitive and stale.
•          Last, but not least, the story must consist of extraordinary events placed in an ordinary setting, this makes sure that the audience can relate to the events and realize that if certain conditions were to apply to their normal, day to day lives, they could find themselves in a similar situation.

Since we opted for a decisively retro style of plotline we decided to incorporate some of the more core, and therefore older, elements into the production: for example our killer is dressed in dark colours to symbolize his bad intentions.   

Moreover we had our victim dress in colourful colours that contrast with the killers and gives the impression of purity as opposed to anger, hate and cruelty.

On the other we have defied convention in some instances to make the storyline and the production in general seem more personal to us and more original in general. For example the entire production is based around the poem “Cousin Kate” by Christina Rossetti; this poem inspired our title and the themes of revenge, hatred and jealousy proved to be inspirational for the production of our thriller. This is a break from tradition because most of the time thrillers and other genres at large are based on more than one source of inspiration. Moreover the poem was also used as a voiceover during the production and further distances this thriller from the norm as it is unusual for a film of this genre to contain extracts of poetry.
On the other hand we have followed the typical conventions by inserting a common element into the production: this is the presence of flashbacks, this is one to give a sense of the back-story for the production; many thrillers use this technique such as Pulp Fiction (1994) and Annie hall (1977).

Other than flashback we made extensive use of fast editing and increased the diegetic sound, especially in the train sequences; this was done to hit the audience hard and to keep them riveted to the action going on.
This is shown very well in this shot:

This is the climactic ending to the chase sequence that ends with the killer knocking out the victim and tying her down to the train tracks.

For reference this sequence could be compared to the infamous bathroom scene in psycho.

Both these scenes use a close up of the killer while he/she delivers the blow; also in both cases the act of the killer is obscures and not easily seen.

Moreover the sound is also heightened during these sequences to make sure the audience is fully aware and focused on the action.