Directors Commentary

Feedback

We showed our final thriller to a range of people to gain their thoughts and views about what they enjoyed and what we could improve for future projects;

'The use of dark lighting and flashes

worked really well creating suspense

and keeping the audience engaged,

on the edge of their seat.'

'The flashes that occur at the scene change

are very impressive and I enjoyed them,

however the introduction of FirstTakeStudios

 should have been more subtle'

'I found it very enthralling and eye-grabbing,

my attention was kept on the screen

the entire time, though the speech

 in the beginning should be louder'

'Wonderful! had me on the edge of my seat!!

If im going to be picky when i first saw it i heard

the music effect at the start but then didn't hear

 the girl speaking but looking back

maybe the music effect at the start is meant to

be louder to give an impacting effect on the

audience then when the dialogue starts

the sound levels would be right.'

'Very entertaining, thouroughly enjoyed it,

though the phone call could have sounded

more dramatic.'

I was very pleased with the feeback we recieved for our final piece, it made me feel more confident about the final piece.

Evaluation

Evaluation

Even though we cut out the first part of our story and added to our storyline, were very happy with the way our final piece turned out and much happier that we changed and modified our piece. 

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

By watching several types of different types thrillers, this allowed us to research and look more deeply into the kind of different thrillers that are available, this began to gave us more creative thought about what our own thriller could be about. Also, it allowed us to make more research about the forms and conventions of a thriller film in order to make ours successful.

To begin with we wanted our audience to see a normal situation before adding drama to this, so they could fully understand what was happening in the scene and how it happened instead of starting with the drama.

We showed a normal situation by our lead walking down the street, listening to her music then entering her house and grabbing a drink, already here, we introduce the stain of the hand print, this would have originally created the tension-build but since this was cut from the final piece, the tension began elsewhere.

We used fairly little music in the start of the scene; we didn’t feel any soundtrack was extremely necessary to the scene until we introduced the brother’s neck injury.  This is also the scene which highlights the injury and therefore introduces the sinister part of the story.

Our storyline manages to use a mix of a Conspiracy Thriller type and a Mysterious Thriller type, mysterious because the audience is at a loss at why the brother is murdered and why the lead has initially been kidnapped, this does not reveal itself at the end of the opening either. This could also be considered a Conspiracy Thriller because the lead has to overcome an enemy, the person who attacked her though this one is more of what would be to come in the rest of the media piece.

Music begins to pick up when the brother’s injury is revealed, adding to the tension and creating a more atmospheric feeling to our audience. The voice-overs and screams we use also become echoed to add and make it more frightening and distant from the audience.

The editing becomes essential as it introduces a completely new scene with a different location, this introduced by the flashing of the new scene, with a new texture, and the new scene is also introduced by fading in.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media project represents a normal, average teenager going about her day as normal until she gets home, discovers her brother has been killed and then she is then attacked and kidnapped.

However, when she is attacked, it is unclear how old her kidnapper is and what exactly his motives are, they could be for pure violence or infatuation or something more psychological then this.

Though it is not incredibly frequent, this could be a representation of teenagers that have been murdered and attacked.

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

Any film company may choose to distribute our film, a large company or a small, independent company might choose to distribute it as it does not appear dependent on effects but does not lack them either, attempting to make it as realistic as possible.

The thriller genre and aspects gives this product a 15 rating, this would mean the product would only be advertised after a certain time on television, though this may affect advertisement and who it would reach to, it should attract a more older generation then a younger one as they are more likely to watch television in the late evening.

As this product is a British, Independent film it may not target a large Hollywood company, more likely target Film Four which is known to be favourable to British films and some low budget films, however using Film Four would not make this move mainstream and only available to a certain percentage of an audience but some Independent Cinemas may choose to distribute this movie also as some are more preferable to amateur talents.

Small TV networks may also be more favourable into showing this product as a straight-to-tv film which would gain plenty of recognition and viewers, though numbers may depend on whether the film was shown on cable or not.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

As the product deals with violence and some tense situations it would gain a 15 rating meaning that the film then attracts an audience of over fifteen years old as they are legally allowed to view this product.

However any age or gender may be attracted to this product, as it does not exaggerate the amount of graphical violence.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We introduced who we were at the start of the video and then introduced the chosen title of the piece, we hoped this would give the audience more of an official and professional feel to our final product, after this we delved straight into our story, introducing our main character and her brothers injury.

We would choose to promote our film on all the main TV channels such as BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5 as these are the most common channels that any television viewer has access too, we chose this so we could have maximum viewing potential. However, this would have to be after a certain time to avoid any chance of causing stress to young viewers.

I think the change in the location helps keep the interest with audience as this makes it appear more mysterious as they do not understand where the character is or why she is there, just like the character herself.

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

I originally had limited knowledge about using a MAC software and using the imovie editing software that I would then use to edit my final piece. I learnt a great deal about this software by using this to edit my media, which may become useful in the future.

I learnt that having  and filming more footage then originally needing is a useful thing as some editing may not turn out as one had hoped, more footage may be needed then originally thought. Some clips may turn out to be inconsistent also, for example if one shot had a door closed, another had the door open. This would result in the need for re-shoots.

I have also learn how to cut a clip to the length I need for the media, how to add a clip to the software which would then become the product, how to add transitions such as fade ins/outs to change the scene and make it more effective, to add music to make the scene more mysterious and tense and lastly how to add lighting in case the filming is in a setting to dark.

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

Our continuity was based on using different kinds of camera shots, by coming up with ideas with my group we were able to think up an idea that could be similar to our continuity, it would have the same kind of genre and the same mysterious idea where the character themselves does not know where they are just like the audience.

By first filming and editing the continuity, I was able to learn different ways to film with the camera and then editing the piece on the software, which became useful when it was time to edit my final piece.

By doing the preliminary task it helped prepare me and my group just how long it can take to prepare an idea and then initially film it, preparing for re-shoots. Filming it from different angles and then ultimately editing it, which can be a timely process.

It also prepared us for future issues that could have occurred such as lighting issues, since we came across these in our continuity we were much more knowledgeable how to prevent this in our final piece.

Final Thriller

This is our final thriller opening for media;

Adding a Voice Over

Adding a Voice Over

Originally in our thriller we had decided to rely on an opening song which would engage the audience with our lead more as it would signify what she was listening to through her headphones.
Since we then decided to cut the beginning of our original piece, we considered adding a voice over at the end of the final thriller as it was only supposed to be an opening and would create another storyline that could possibly continue on the story.
It would also show that several others are also looking for our lead, we first created the idea of her mother but instead changed it to her sister because of the age of our voices, since we wanted it to be more convincing. We introduced the voice-over to make it more convincing that someone was looking for our lead.

Since our new character was going to be talking to the police, we wanted it to sound as official as possible, by watching several scenes of this from TV shows we were able to come up with a similar script that we could use as a voice over for our final piece.

This is the script we used;

Police; This is Emergency…

Sister; Police

Police; What’s your emergency?

Sister; I found a…my brothers body… he’s been killed…please help me!

Police; Address please

Sister; Give Address

Police; Police are on their way…Were you there when this happened?

Sister; No I came home and found him here… 

Police; Can you tell me where you found the body?

Sister; On the sofa…I didn’t realise…his throat is slit…my sisters missing…she should be home! Her phones off…what if she’s…please come, she could be missing!

Police; Where do you think she could be?

Sister; She should be at home! The doors open, Jacks dead…

Police; Stay on the line until the police get there please.

Sister; Hurry…

We tried to make our script and voice over as authentic as possible as though this was a conversation really going on, to try and ensure it was as real as possible, we recorded it straight of the phone and had the two speakers in different rooms to prevent an echo.

We then needed to edit the voice over, without the laughter and long pauses to make it sound more serious and realistic.

Original Thriller

This was our first attempt at our thriller, the main idea behind this was for our lead to come home and behave like she had not discovered anything unusual, she therefore goes into the living room and just when she discovers that her brother has been brutally murdered, she is attacked from behind.

After watching our piece several times we decided there needed to be more to the story then we had originally planned, we considered cutting out the beginning part of the film of our lead actually entering the house and considered starting the piece of with our lead discovering the body then.

We continued to think of ways to follow on the story, instead of continuing to show our lead being kidnapped we wondered if we should show more footage instead of our lead waking up after being kidnapped, we decided that this could create a more mysterious and chilling atmosphere then more of kidnapping.

We felt that we had managed to cover many of the different types of camera movements, angles and shots but felt that we could challenge ourselves with more in the final piece.

Behind The Scenes

BEHIND THE SCENES

We filmed some footage of us filming our final piece, this included setting up the tripod, different angles we wanted film from, problems that arised and overcoming this problems. There is also some footage shot for when we decided to add in an extra location.


FILMING, DAY ONE and TWO;