Research for our ideas and film opening.

 

The group all did various research into what type of genre would be selected for the idea of our film. Various youtube clips, openings helped choose the genre which was selected. After choosing the genre we did more research into what would be needed for a film of this genre, props,setting, use of camera.


The use of a group chat helped the communication to be a lot better, sharing different views and ideas through the chat was a good way to connect together. The conventions research was key to how our film was going to be planned out, the questionnaire also helped get ideas of what people expected from our genre chosen.



Looking at different films and the characters in those films we focused on their behaviour and how they were dressed and noted it as it would be a key factor to our film.

Evaluation Question 2- How Does Your Media Product Represent A Particular Social Group?

Our film contains only two characters, both of which are aged within the brackets classifying them as teenagers.

The boy is represented as being a teenager by the clothes he wears and his style of wearing them. The boy is dressed in an iconic black hoodie which perfectly matches the stereotypical image of a teenager; this is complimented by the jeans he wears which secure the audiences judgement into making sure that he must be a teenager or young adult. On top of this the character always has his hood up therefore hiding his identity from view from either the female character as well as the audience both portraying the stereotypical image of teenagers so hated by media as well as an hidden and mysterious character.

 

The female within our movie has been represented as a teenager also by the clothes she wears, her make up style and her actions. It is known that most modern representations of teenagers are depicted not only as social recluses but also drug and alcohol abusers. Our film implies the abuse of drugs both through the title of the film as well as the substance being consumed at the beginning of the film. Her style of makeup is also modern and clearly represents the time of the filming. Her clothes also reinforce both the time in which the movie is set allowing the audience to identify the year as well as the stereotype of skinny black clothing which is quite revealing when compared to the clothes of other countries. The female character within our film is similar to characters such as Hedy from “Single White Female” , while not impersonating  the antagonist or male character the female of our film definitely grows an unhealthy addiction to the male character as does Hedy from SWF. In both films the females represent an unrelenting force with a hidden agenda while remaining incredibly obscure and dangerous.

Evaluation question 1-In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use,Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlFzYzZzDpk&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=mrwaffleeyes



-This is an extreme close up which is common to see in this genre. This is due to the fact that these shots reflect the protagonist’s actions and feelings or give you an insight to what the character is going through which can include the audience.

- The title sequence for our film fits in with typical psycho thrillers as we have used a plain black background with white writing to put emphasis on our title.

- Swimming pools are common is psycho thrillers, or use of water as the main character always see's something in the pool and once in nothing is there, this always add's suspense and make the scene more tense, we added a similar scene to our film it adds the same effect.

 - Wood scenes are also a big part of psycho thrillers, usually the protagonist gets caught up in following or being followed in scenes involving woods. This always creates tension between the film and the audience, as it was used for our film it adds the effect of wanting to know what is going to happen next the use of sound is also key as it helps to create and add more of an effect to the film.

- This setting was used in our film due to the fact that there was lots of empty space. This seemed to link in to the protagonists thoughts as she felt lonely throughout our opening film which was reflected in this green space at Ashton Court. It also created suspense due to the sense of abandonment, as well as this the scene was close to where we lived allowing it to be a viable and local filming area.

- This shot here is the antagonist walking through a door in a car park, this low angle along with low key lighting add's more suspense as you cant see the face and don't know where he is going. This add's more confusion for the protagonist in this scene as she's unsure of where he has gone. 

- The protagonist still unsure of where the antagonist is, looking around for him unaware of that he is right behind her, it adds more and more suspense being a viewer of this as you see him and the protagonist can't. This also shows the effects of antagonist, its like he's there playing mind games causing confusion for the protagonist. The confusion created makes the protagonist wonder more where he has gone, the effect of this shows how the character is alone and unsure of what is going on.

- The antagonist in this scene shows the effect he has on the film with it appearing to be a body floating on the water possibly unconscious/dead this affect is used commonly as it make the protagonist commit to saving some but to discover there is no body in the water. This causes masses of confusion and worry to the protagonist as they are still not sure of who it is as its someone anonymous. 

-This shot of Ashton court when the antagonist is walking down the path. The surroundings add effect the tree's with no leaves, looking dull and nobody around adds more suspicion to the scene this was effect as it made the protagonist more intrigued to follow him.  

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?

While editing and filming our continuity task we ran into some difficulties that we tried to overcome in different ways, for example showing continuity was challeneging at times so we had to do a couple of re-shoots. But through this it made the shooting of our film opening task easier as it gave us an in site of how things will look when being edited.
Using the 180 degree was useful and having taken it into account as a group, we think its good that we tested the rule while filming our continuity task as it gave us more experience when shooting our film opening and was also an option to consider if you we wanted to include it.

We found match on action easy to incorporate into our continuity exercise, we showed it here when the character walks through the door, we showed him opening the door from outside the room, then continued to showing him, from the same period of time continuing into the room from a angle shot from inside the room. Through this we learned that match on action was an important part of filming that added to the fluency of the viewing experience we used it effectively in our film opening task right at the beginning, in the same way showing a character walking through a door.
Within our task we focused on continuous flow and correct placement of cameras to enable our short film to meet the standards set.

As a group we discovered that the audio on the camcorder wasn't great and often picked up a lot of back ground noise rather than any dialogue which meant a lot of music was involved rather than any dialouge, this also meant we had to re-shoot scenes in quieter conditions. Audio continuity was also an issue due to background noises effecting the flow of the film and continuity, but it worked well in some situations as it fitted into some of the scenes but was a problem at times and we dealt with it as a group by overlaying music over it.


Camera movements were used in set positions, using a pre-planning technique we could effectively and quickly set up scenes and camera angles to take advantage of the small amounts of time where a scene was isolated and empty.

Evaluation Question 3 - What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product And Why?

The movie will be a low budget art-house film which would be aimed to venue in art house cinema.

The film will be reminiscent of Richard ayoade. Our actors will include medium budget actors such as Maisie Williams and Evan Peters as our main characters. The film will be hosted on Film4 with the budget £3.3 Million to create and advertise. Our distribution company will be Artisan Entertainment as they are known from distributing low to medium budget movies.

A marketing campaign much like the Blair witch Project would be utilized to create the greatest effectiveness with the amount of funding we have limited ourselves too. Using posters much like the Blair witch project in several major cities and accompany these posters with a social media tag such as a # would help raise enigma and engage an audience for the release of the film. It is also a way of getting interest as social media is such a big thing on the world its recognition would spread pretty fast.

A BAFTA Award would be an award that would be most suiting to the films genre and low budget. Our film would be released in late autumn as we feel this would be a time most suited for the release of the film due to the longer nights and the atmosphere of suspicion due to events such as Halloween. This would also attract more people as they like to experience as thriller or fright to get them into that mood for that time of year.

Our film will be shown within art-house film cinemas due to the niche audience which the film may attract. Another idea to promote the film would be showing the film in outdoor areas where the atmosphere of the surroundings can match the atmosphere of the film. This would bring more tension and attract people as it has that suspense to it, would make it interesting and attract people's attention as they would wonder what it would be about.

                                                                    

- Maisie Williams would be the female character wanted to fit the role of the female who is following the anonymous man, her acting style appealed to us to suit the role after being in other big films and t.v series we believe she would be amazing for this role. Also having the young look would help as our film is mainly focused on teenagers.

- Evan Peters would be one of the main characters, we believe he would fit the role of the anonymous character, he's a very good actor and would suit that role. After featuring in other big t.v drama's and had big roles in other films his acting experience and skills would credit our film hugely. His young look would also be a benefit due to our film focused on teenagers.

- Richard Ayoade would be the director of our film, his style would appeal very similar to what type of film we have created. The films he has directed and the type of atmosphere or scene he can create would really benefit our film.

- Film4 is the channel which our film would be showcased on.

- BAFTA award that our film would be in contention of winning

Psychological Thrillers

What are psychological thrillers?
Psychological thriller is a fictional thriller story which emphasizes the psychology of its characters and their unstable emotional states.^[1] In terms of classification, the category is a subgenre of the broader ranging thriller category,^[1] with similarities to Gothic and detective fiction in the sense of sometimes having a "dissolving sense of reality", moral ambiguity, and complex and tortured relationships between obsessive and pathological characters.^[2] Psychological thrillers often incorporate elements of mystery, drama, action, and horror, particularly psychological horror. They are usually books or films. - Quoted from Wiki.

Films-Pulp Fiction;The silence of the lambs;The shining;Mr Brooks;Inception;White noise;se7en;Vacany;Memento;American Psycho;Fatal Attraction

Actors/Actresses-Uma Thurman;Bruce Payne;Danny Trejo;John Travolta;Wesley Snipes;Jessica Biel;Jennifer Jason Leigh;Christian Bale;Dustin Hoffman

Elements-

Action and psychological aspects both are used to add to the suspense.

With a psychological thriller the conflict is through the mind, skills, and wit of main characters, reversing the more normal thriller “plot over character” expectations ie. a psychological thriller reader needs to understand the character, character can be slightly more important than plot.

Psychological thrillers often deal with common themes such as death, reality, perception, identity, existence or purpose, and one or two of these themes should be wound through the film.

Target audience-

• The target audience of many psychological thrillers are 18+

• This is because they include a lot of violence and some psychological issues which can be disturbing for many younger viewers

• There are usually warnings on the back of the DVD cover which states why it is rated as it is e.g. contains extreme violence or sexual scenes

Final Cast Crew

Actors/Actresses:
Beau
Annalise

Directors:
Lucy
Remy

Camera crew:
Remy
Lucy

Producers:
Lucy
Beau
Annalise
Remy

Editors:
Remy
Lucy
Annalise
Beau