Evaluation-Connor Hilton

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

 Conventions are things that are commonly incorporated into a certain genre of film. Conventions of a thriller film a re key aspects in the film that make that film fit into the thriller genre. When we made our thriller film opening, we tried to incorporate these conventions to ensure that our opening fit the genre. This also helps the audience understand what genre of film they are watching and associate the film with the thriller genre.

Here are the key conventions of a thriller film and how we have tried to learn from other films of the genre to incorporate the conventions in our film:

Enigma 
Enigma is a term that is another word for mystery. If you are creating enigma, you are making the audience ask questions about what something means or whats going to happen next. It is a convention of thriller films that keeps the audience interested and engaged in your film.

 A good example of enigma is in the opening sequence to Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011):
Two characters enter a building with masks, dark clothing and guns so we assume the two characters are stealing something. Some time passes and one of the masked men returns to the car. 

After this there is a sequence of close-up shots of the driver and the masked man looking around and waiting for the other masked character. This creates enigma because the audience is left to question if the other character will  return to the car, or get left behind because they have to leave before the police show up. 

There is then a moment of relief when the other masked 
character emerges from the building and gets in the car.  
 
We also created enigma in our main task, we did this to try and make the audience ask questions and to keep them intrigued.

In our example we had a grave digging scene. In this scene we had a variety of shots but mainly close up shots. This is to make sure that we didn't show the face of the character is it would reveal who the character was and the audience wouldn't question about who the character is. 

The scene starts with a shot of the character walking along a grassy hill with a shovel over his shoulder. He is wearing dark clothing which also contributes to the creations of enigma. We also added a black and white effect to the shot, this enhances the enigma and overall makes the shot look much more intense. 
 
We then had a series of close-up shots of the shovel going into the ground and then pulling up the grass. These shots were close-ups because it made the shots more effective as it is more clear of what the character is doing. This creates enigma and enables the audience to begin questioning who the grave is for and why he might be digging the grave.

 

 

 

 

Restricted & Unrestricted Narration

Restricted and Unrestricted narration are narrative techniques that can be used to give the audience less information or more information, depending on the situation, genre of the film etc. 

Most of the time restricted narration is used in thriller films to generate questions and create enigma, a good example of this is the opening to 'The Usual Suspects'  (Bryan Singer: 1995).

The camera then follows the newly introduced male character down some metal stairs but the camera continues to hide the characters face and has a shallow depth of field where some rope is out of the focus but the character remains in focus. The camera then slowly zooms in of the characters shoes as he walks towards the other male character.

The next shot is a close up of the man walking past the dead body. The camera then stops to show that the dead body has a knife in it's back which answers one of the questions that was generated earlier in the sequence. The background music is steady and not raising to crescendo or lowering to decrescendo which tells us that nothing hugely dramatic is going to happen.

This next shot displays the new character lighting a cigarette, however, the camera doesn't pan up to reveal the characters face but the other male character now knows who the man is because when the man lights his cigarette his face will be revealed. This leaves the audience with less information than the characters and creates mystery and leaves the audience questioning what is going on and what is going to happen next.

We used restricted narration in our sequence to build questions and make the audience ponder what is going on. For example we had a sequence of shots in a small room with a man questioning another male character (Figure 1) but the audience doesn't hear the original question so they are wondering what the question is and what the characters response will be.

Figure 1

 

Todorov's Narrative

In 1969 Todorov developed a narrative theory which he believed could be applied to any film. He also believed all films follow a similar pattern They all went through 5 different narrative stages which are:

1. A state of equilibrium(Everything is normal)
2. A disruption of the equilibrium by an event.
3. A recognition of the disruption.
4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption.
5. A restoration of equilibrium or creation of new equilibrium.

I feel that our opening has some elements of Todorov's narrative theory but, it doesn't follow it exactly. For example, at the beginning there is clearly a disruption as a man is being interrogated. This means that we can re-arrange Todorov's theory but still create an effective story. An example of this is 'The Usual Suspects'  (Bryan Singer: 1995) because the opening scene is actually the end of the story. This application of Todorov's theory can be very effective because it can generate more enigma and force the audience to ask themselves questions about the film. It also has a positive effect on the audience when it is revealed that they have already seen the ending because all the questions they were having throughout the film get answered. This is a very common convention of thriller films, however, it is not always the case. 

Our film breaks the order of Todorov's theory because we use flashbacks to display the first stage of equilibrium, in the flashback the disruption is created when one of the characters passes out due to his drink being spiked.

Iconography

Iconography when related to thriller films is things that are iconic to the genre, in other words, things that you commonly see appear in thriller films. The most common iconic objects for thriller films are:

• Guns/Weapons
• Fire
• Death
• Dark/Low-Key Lighting
• Dark Costume
• Blood
• Restricted Narration

A good example of the use of iconography in a thriller film is the opening to Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino 2003). The reason I chose Kill Bill as my example for iconography is because it has a large amount of the iconic objects/ effects in it. The opening is in full black and white which adds to the enigma. 

We used iconography in our main task because we wanted to create questions and generate enigma. We did this by using restricted narration and dark costume. We used both of these iconic things in the grave digging scene. Throughoout the grave digging scene the mans face is dark and hard to recognise and his clothing is dark. This adds enigma and keeps the audience questioning.

Protagonist & Antagonist

A protagonist is the main character of the story, however, a film can only have 1 protagonist but can also have multiple main characters. This means that the protagonist is the character who is most important to the story.

An antagonist is the opposite of a protagonist which means they are often the villain or the character that causes the disruption of equilibrium.

Most thriller films will have a protagonist and an antagonist. For example 'The Usual Suspects' (Bryan Singer: 1995) clearly has a protagonist and an antagonist in the opening to the film. There is a man which is sitting down in what appears to an aftermath of a fight/battle on a boat. Another man wearing dark clothing slowly approaches the man, his clothing is iconic to the antagonist character because it is dark and mysterious. Also, we can assume that the man sitting on the floor is the protagonist because he has been the focus for the first part of the opening, however, the character with the most amount of on-screen time isn't always the protagonist.

In our main task we had a protagonist and an antagonist, but this isn't clear from the start of the sequence. We don't know until the two characters start interrogating the character in the chair, so the audience can assume the character in the chair is the protagonist.

Binary Oppositions

Binary oppositions means that you have two things that are opposite or oppose eachother. The most common example of a binary opposition is good versus bad. This is because it is a very clear binary opposition.

Overall, I don't feel that we incorporated binary oppositions into our film very effectively. I think this because there is no clear opposition, nothing like good versus evil, to overcome and improve upon this I feel that we should have the protagonist and antagonist be a bit more aware of eachother and maybe have a fight or standoff. 

Camera Sound & Editing

The camera, sound and editing aspects also link in with the conventions of a thriller film. This is because the camera, sound and editing come together to create the mood and atmosphere of  the thriller film. 

An example of a thriller film that uses camera, sound and editing to create the narrative is 'Se7en' (David Fincher, 1995). I chose this example because the editing and camera work is very effective in creating the creepy mood. 

Figure 1:

• This shot is a close up of a book/group of pages which immediately establishes enigma as the we begin to question what the book is and what it's about.
• The lighting is very low-key to create a dark and mysterious feel to the shot.
• The use of shallow depth of field makes the book the focus of the shot but still allows us to see a hand turning a page of the book. 
• We can't see who's hand it is so the use of restricted narration makes the audience question and think about what is going to happen.

Figure 2:

• This shot is part of the opening credits but is used in an effective manner to increase the pace of the editing.
• There is an old time film effect on this shot which creates a 'creepy' feel to the shot. 
• The shot also looks like it is shot by a camera pointing at a cinema screen but is off center which is very effective and adds a certain style to the shot.

Figure 3:

• This shot fades in from black. 
• This shot has low-key lighting which appears to be created by a desk lamp pointing from the direction at the top left of the shot. 
• There appears to be a drawing of two hands with distorted fingers and the hands are positioned in an odd way. This adds to the 'creepy' feel of the sequence.

Figure 4:

• There is a sequence of close ups of what appear to be some sort of machine moving. 
• There is a non-diegetic sound in the background that is very sharp and sounds like some type of creaking which helps to create the creepy mood and adds to the atmosphere of the sequence.
• There is then another use of the technique where it cuts to the black screen with creepy looking hand written white writing displaying one of the actors names. The writing is very common among thrillers as it has so much contrast to the black background.

In our sequence I believe we effectively used camera and sound to create our mood, however, I feel we could of incorporated some more editing techniques such as overlapping to make our sequence slightly better.

An example of when we used camerawork and sound to create the mood of the sequence is in the last scene. In this scene we see a man with a shovel start to dig a grave. The camera work is very precise  as we made sure to use restricted narration in order to hide the grave diggers identity. (Figure 1-below). Also, we used sound when cutting into our titles, we did this by cutting from the grave digging scene into our titles when the music crescendos. This gives the cut more impact and is a mini-jump scare of sorts.

Figure 1

Mise En Scene

11 Areas of Mise En Scene:

1. Lighting
2. Setting
3. Colour
4. Composition
5. Hair
6. Make-Up
7. Costume
8. Facial Expression
9. Body Language
10. Decor
11. Props

Most thriller films all have similar aspects of mise en scene, this is because the conventions link in with mise en scene and become part of most thriller films because of this. An example of the use of mise en scene conventions is 'The Usual Suspects' (Bryan Singer: 1995).

The first shot in The Usual Suspects displays a group of matches being lit on fire. The shot first starts off with a black screen and then has a fade, which is created by the initial match being lit, when the matches are lit on fire with another match. This shot has very low lighting which is common for a film of the thriller genre. The only light source in this shot is the initial match and the group of matches when they are lit on fire, this gives a very 'real' effect to the shot and begins to create suspense. As this shot ends there is a decrescendo in the non-diegetic background music.

The second shot is a close up of a male character holding the group of matches. The character then raises the group of matches up to light his cigarette and this is where we see the whole face of the character. This creates some sort of enigma as the character is now thinking about who this man could possibly be. The characters clothing is all dark which tells us that he could possibly be a bad character or just a serious character. The lighting in this shot is also very low indicating that it is night time when this was being filmed.

The third shot we are shown is a close up of a few barrels stacked up with one barrel with a hole in it and liquid is pouring out. Due to the convention off barrels containing flammable or dangerous liquids it is indicated that the barrels contain something flammable such as oil or petrol. This creates an enigma as the audience is now left to question whether the male character is going to set the liquid on fire due to the audience previously being shown the man lighting matches and a cigarette.

We also applied these key mise en scene conventions in our main task in the grave digging scene. For example we shot most of our shots so that you couldn't see the characters face, like in the example above. Also, our setting was on a hill surrounded by trees which adds the isolation effect to the scene. Lastly the character is carrying a prop shovel which is iconic to the thriller genre because he could use it as a weapon and it links to the 'murder' convention of burying the dead body. 

Themes & Issues

The themes and issues of a thriller film really depend on what the film is about. For example, the film 'The Disappearance Of Alice Creed' is about a girl that goes missing and is taken by two male characters. This means it has a theme of kidnapping and abduction. Most thriller films have themes such as crime, murder, drugs etc. 

I feel that our opening used and fit the correct themes to show the audience that it was a thriller film. I believe this because we had an interrogation scene, a scene in a bar and a grave digging scene. All of which fit a thriller theme. 

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 A media product can represent many different social groups such as: 

• Gender
• Age 
• Ethnicity
• Sexuality
• Class & Status
• Disability & Ability
• Regional Identity

 I feel that our media product represented two main social groups, age and gender. These social groups have been represented in our media product through the use of the 4 technical codes, Camera, Mise En Scene, Editing and Sound.

Camera:

Low Angles:
Low angles can be used to represent the difference in age. For example in our final product, in the first scene of our final product there is a low angle shot of the investigator character standing up and leaning over to speak to the Rick character. This represents a difference in the age of the characters, the investigator appears to be older than the Rick character which could suggest that he has more power over him.



High Angles:
High angles can be used to represent gender, for example in our final product there is an over the shoulder shot from the investigator. The investigator is taller and higher up than the Rick character as he is standing over the Rick character which indicates he is powerful which could be considered typical for a male character.




Mise En Scene:
Costume:
In our final product costume way used to assist in the representation of the male characters in our final product. For example, the Doctor character, the actor who played the Doctor character is visually younger than an actual doctor would be so we used costume to make it obvious that the character was a male doctor.







Make-Up:
In the first scene of our final product, we used make-up to create a small scar on the Rick character's face. We used a simple technique by drawing the scar with a pen, which still looked believable in the final product. The make-up represents gender because the male 'Rick' character is given a scar which is associated with the notion of the males being tough and getting hit in a fight.

Editing:

Pace:

In the final scene of our final product, we had a grave digging scene that we wanted to create a fast pace for. We achieved this by using quick cuts and short shots. The reason we used cuts instead of another transition is because there is no delay between each shot which builds the pace. The fast pace could represent the male gender simply because of the association of males with action in thriller films.

Sound:

Diegetic Sound:

Diegetic sound is used a few times throughout the piece, however, I would say that the most effective use to represent gender was in the pub scene. In the pub scene we added some background noise of people in the pub, you can hear mostly male people talking and glasses clinking. This represents the male gender because going to the pub with your friends is something that mostly males do. 

Representing Characters:

In order of appearance:

Rick:

• This character was created to add to the plot of the product, the way he is represented is weak and very anxious. This makes the audience feel empathetic for the character because of his situation.
• We also represented the character in a way that would make the audience like the character. for example, when he is trying to remember something but he can't.
• This character wasn't created to challenge a stereotype.

The Investigator:

• This character was created to be disliked by the audience at the start of the sequence. This was created by him speaking aggressively towards the 'Rick' character. 
•  We tried to shift the way that the audience feels about the character towards the end of the sequence by adding some less serious lines to his dialogue, for example, when Rick awakens from his flashback the investigator says "So, you got my information yet, Ricky boy." 
• The character was also created and represented in a certain way to fir the 'bad cop' stereotype, this means he has a short temper and acts out of anger. He fit our expectations of a police investigator,

The Doctor:

• This character was created to control the investigators aggression and stop him from harming Rick extremely.
• This character was created from a doctor stereotype that means he wants his patient to be okay and unharmed. Because of this he also acts as sort of a 'good cop' in the 'good cop, bad cop' cliche. 

Rick's Friend:

• Rick's friend was created to fit the stereotype of someone who visits pubs and gets into trouble often. 
• We didn't put a lot of thought into the character because he plays a very small role in the actual film. His stereotype was created for convenience and to add to the story. 

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

There are three stages to creating a film:

• Film production-The making of the film
• Film Distribution-Securing a place for your film for home viewing or cinema viewing
• Film Exhibition- The place where the audience go to watch the film

Distribution Methods:

We as a production company get to choose how our film will be distributed so that our audience can see our film. As an independent company we have two choices:

• Distribution Company-We would pay for a distribution company to distribute our film. This gives them permission to advertise our film. The downside to this is that we have to pay for the service and the distribution company takes a percentage of the revenue that our film makes.
• Self Distribution-We would distribute the film ourselves without the help of a distribution company. The good thing about this is that you can use of digital distribution which means putting your video online to be streamed or downloaded. 

Licensing Films:

If you pay a distribution company to distribute your film, it means that the company has the legal rights to do what ever they want with the film because they have paid the production company for the rights to the film.

Reaching Our Audience:

There are a few ways that we could use to allow our audience to view our film. The platform that the audience view the film on is decided by the distributors. Which means that it could be a company deciding which platform or the production company deciding which platform.

Ways people can view a film:

• Cinema
• Home and mobile viewing
• DVD
• TV
• Downloading
• Streaming it online-always available to the audience that has an internet connection

Cinemas our film could be shown in:

There are two different types of cinema:

• Mainstream cinema-e.g. Cineworld or Vue
  
• Independent cinema-e.g. Duke of Yorks in Brighton
  

Our film is a low budget film, this means that we don't really have the money to get our film into mainstream cinemas. This means that we will likely put our film in an independent cinema and possibly distribute our film online aswell. 

Digital Distribution:

As broadband speed and connection begins to grow there are more ways in which to view media. This is because services like Netflix has come around which allow you to stream any film available on their service if you pay a monthly fee of £5.99. Netflix is a fairly new service as it came to the UK in 2012. However, they did provide a service in which you could rent films for a few days and then send the DVD back. 

We could also use a service such as YouTube to distribute our film digitally. If we did this it would mean that our audience could view the film for free whenever they wanted, if they had an internet connection. The advantage to distributing on YouTube is that you can upload your film for free and then get revenue from adverts that would play at the start of your film or at some point during the film. Using YouTube can be very powerful because your audience can easily share your film on social media which will give your film more exposure to different people and different audiences. 

Marketing Our Film:

As we are an independent production company, we can't afford expensive advertising such as TV advertising or  billboards. This means that we would probably use online advertisements, a viral advertising campaign, a trailer or film posters. 

Conclusion:

As an independent production company have two main options:

• Hire a distribution company to help distribute our film 
• Distribute the film ourselves

Both of these options have there advantages and disadvantages which have been discussed. I feel that we would benefit more if we distributed our film by ourselves by handing out a lot of DVD's and uploading our film to YouTube. I feel that this would be better for us as paying a distribution company costs a lot of money and if we don't get a lot of publicity and revenue then we won't make any profit. If our film gets a lot of views on YouTube then we can gain a profit from the revenue generated by the advertisements.

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Target Audience-The group of people that your film is aimed at.
If you are making a media product it is important to establish a target audience. This is because it gives you a guideline for what can go into your film. Other groups of people outside your target audience can also view your media product.

Target Audience For 'flashbacks':
Our film is aimed at young adult males, aged from 15 to 20.

Decision to Make Our Target Audience Young Adult Males:
We made this decision in the planning stage our the creation of our media product. We decided on a target audience in the early stages to enable us to adapt our script and the events in the story to that target audience. If we waited to establish a target audience it would impact our media product negatively.

Awareness of Target Audience: 
Being aware of our target audience is important as it allows us to make decisions in dialogue, level of violence and vulgar language. It also allows you to create relatable characters which makes people in your target audience like the character.

Here are a few films with a similar target audience:

The Dark Knight/ The Dark Knight Rises

The Amazing Spider-Man

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

After we established a target audience, we started to make decisions based on our target audience. We established the audience before we wrote the script but we had a base story line to stick to. From here we chose settings such as a pub to fit the target audience.

Pub Scene:

Image From Pub Scene

One example of a decision that was made to fit the target audience was the decision to set a discussion scene inside a pub. This fits the target audience because the location is relatable and recognised as a common area in which two males might meet and have a discussion. We could of set this scene in a different setting such as a coffee house, but, this setting fits our target audience much better. 

Our Media Product's Title:

The title was something that was created throughout the creation of our media product. This is because we asked other people in the target audience about some of the possible titles. After gathering audience feedback on our title, we were able to come to the decision of our title being 'Flashback'. This is because it was adapted to sound more interesting to our target audience so that it wouldn't go unnoticed and would catch our target audiences attention. 

Designing The Title Screen:

At the end of the opening we have inserted a title screen. We spent some time gathering audience research about the design of this screen. After we got the research, we decided to have white, police case file type font in the centre of the screen. We also spaced the letters out from each other which could link with the main characters flashbacks being spaced out and unclear. Also, the ration of white to black on the screen could link with the fact that the main character doesn't get a lot of flashbacks.

Question 6: What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Here is a Prezi to answer question 6:

Question 7: Looking back on your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

In this blog post I am going to discuss how I personally and our group progressed from the preliminary task to the main task. 

The first thing that I am going to discuss is our use of framing. In the preliminary task we took most of our shots from quite a long distance away from the action, because of this, we had a lot of empty space around the action and the shots that were meant to be intense and important didn't portray this intensity and importance due to the distance. To try and solve the issue, when we were editing we had to zoom in on a lot of the shots, this was a quick way to solve the issue, however, because we zoomed in, there was a very clear decrease in the video quality. From this we learned that in the main task we should try to get closer to the characters and action so that, we don't need to zoom in and cause a decrease in the products quality.

An example of where we had to zoom in on a shot:

In this shot you can see the character walking towards a computer to sit down:

In this shot the quality is the same as the native recording quality.

Then we had to zoom in so that the audience could clearly see the character sitting down:

The quality of the shot is very clearly rougher than the original.

Example of good framing used in our final product:

In this shot, we got very close to the character so that the audience could very clearly see the facial expression and seriousness of the character. We physically moved the camera and tripod closer to get a good quality shot. 

We did the same for this over the shoulder shot to continue a shot-reverse shot sequence between the two characters.

The next thing that me and my group improved upon from our preliminary task to our final task is lighting. 

In our preliminary task, we didn't use any external lighting as we didn't have the time to set it up and so, we just used the natural lighting available which was the lights in a hallway and the lights in a college classroom. This was an issue because we wanted to use low key lighting and create an intense meeting between the two characters, however, this was very hard to achieve due to the lack of external lighting available. This meant that some of the shots in our preliminary task weren't lit as we wanted and we were lift with some heavy shadows and very light shot due to the light coming from the windows. 

In our main task we used at least two lights to manipulate the lighting in every shot. This meant that we could have a much better look for our shot and achieve the intensity that we were looking for. It also allowed us to create high-key and low-key lighting where we wanted, this is important because low-key lighting is a convention among thriller films.

Example of original lighting:

As you can see, the lighting in this shot is very generic and doesn't really create a mood or add intensity.

Example of lighting in final task:

As you can see, this lighting helps us create a focus on the character who is being interrogated, while the other two characters are in the shadows enhancing their characters.

The next thing I am going to discuss is our improvement of the setting. Firstly, in our preliminary task, we were very limited in our options with the setting. This is because we were only allowed to shoot inside the college, which made it challenging to escape the classroom feel due to the background of displays and hallways with classrooms on the side. Whereas, in our main task, we were advised to film on a location outside of the college as part of our planning. We managed to get permission to film in a local pub. This made our overall task seem much more professional and create the appropriate mood. 

We also filmed inside the college for part of our task, however, we manipulated the room by covering the door and not showing the furniture in our shots. We were able to do this because we had much more time to plan what we needed to to and where we were going to film, Overall, I feel like our setting was good for our main task and created professionalism that we needed.

Example of preliminary setting:

As you can see, this hallway was very bright and didn't really create the mood we wanted because of the displays and many doors intruding on the shot.

The classroom also didn't really create the right mood because you can see the displays and the computers which brings reality into the sequence and interrupts the mood and story of the sequence.

Example of main task pub setting:

Here is a screenshot from the pub scene in our main task. As you can see, we filmed in an actual pub and created the right mood to fit the story. We also improved the setting by adding a menu on the table and filming at a table with a painting behind it to add to our setting.

Another thing that me and my group learned and improved was our use of titling. In our preliminary task we didn't include a title or title sequence,but, in our main task we decided on the title of 'flashbacks'. We decided on this title after doing some audience research. We original were deciding between two different titles which were 'memories' and 'The Flashbacks'. After receiving some audience feedback we decided to use 'The Flashbacks' but remove the 'The' as it had more of an impact without it. 

We then incorporated our titles into our thriller opening. We had two different shots, one displaying the title and one displaying our production company. We used red for the production company text because it adds intensity and the colour is iconic to the thriller genre. 

We knew how to incorporate our titles because we conducted extensive research into titles and were set the task of analysing four individual title sequences so that when it came to making and incorporating our own titles into the sequence, we knew what techniques to use.

The last thing that I am going to discuss is our use of background music. In our first task, we used one soundtrack throughout the sequence and kept it at the same level of sound throughout the sequence. This was not very effective because it ended up just covering up dialogue and taking away from the feel of the sequence. It basically looked like a very boring music video. We improved upon this in our final task because we used multiple background music tracks and adjusted the levels so that it didn't impact the dialogue and be muted the sound when pausing for dramatic effect. We also used a song that crescendo's in the last segment of our final task sequence as it provides a good transition to our titles and creates an intense ending to our sequence.

Overall, I feel that we have improved dramatically over the time it has taken to complete our preliminary and main task and that our preliminary informed us of what we needed to improve on. I also feel that the research tasks that we did into other professional opening sequences and title sequences really helped us understand what makes a good opening sequence to a thriller and understand how to create an effective title screen.