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

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

the audience for our thriller film would consist of older, more mature teenagers from about 16 and above, other ages would include around mid 20's and some even in the late 30's. The film could also have a small grouping of older viewers around 40's as the way it is film and edited with the colours and flashbacks give it more of a mature look, which works well with pretty much all older audiences. The gender for a thriller would be purely male orientated with maybe a few females, this is because of the amount of male characters that are in the thriller leading to me being interested. That being said, its also to do with the fact the the films is based around the idea of crime and violence which isn't commonly enjoyed much by females.

The Powerpoint below included some examples of some thrillers that are very common to ours, which would share the same audience. The graphs show the ratings different users on the site (IMDB) have given it with also clear understanding of what the ages were that rated, the graph also has a section for male and female and shows the different ratings from them.

Target Audience Research

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

The ideas and themes around the planning of our thriller came from a variety of thrillers from gangster heavy films and classic noir. When it came to the planning we would pick out things we liked about these films and even things we didn't like, then focused on trying to implement these things and avoiding them. in terms of editing, a main influence of the use of flash forwards came from Bourne Ultimatum, but throughout the film they use flash backs instead to create a sense of the character already being in that place, or remember things from his amnesia. The way the produce the flash backs i find to be very accurate with the shaky cam and the use of very heavy affects to make it look like a blur in his mind. The way his facial expressions are made were also a huge influence as it shows the struggle to remember and in our chase the sense of danger in the events to come. Bourne Ultimatum was definitely my biggest influence when it came to editing and so i wanted to pick out the details i loved most about how those films were made. Looking at the flash back the sound used from them is done in a very blurry background noise with key speeches and sounds that show he remembers more parts than overs. Taking that into consideration when it came to the flash forwards i used the sound of the crowbar being picked up as that is a very distinct sound from the actual clip. The thing i like about my flash forwards are that those shots after being show are actually played out later on.

When filming, some of our shots came out perfectly with the use of the natural sunlight in the area, for example when the protagonist pauses against a wall after being chased the lighting comes out very well against his face and the surrounding area. Filming this shot, we had no intentions of the lighting coming out like that because the place we filmed was under a car park and so the lighting coming in was a reflection from a puddle which made it strong and slightly rippling. The use of the lighting in both of these shots show the sort of bad sides to both of these character. For James Bonds (From Casino Royale) he's sitting in a pitch black room with only the light from a street light outside, its effective as it be seen as two sides to the character and for Bond its correct as he is seen as an anti-hero in the recent one. Taking this influence into ours, its shows that the character really is just an average teenager with a normal life, but from unfortunate circumstances has been pulled into a life of crime which leads to punishment and maybe death.

The best thing about our film is definitely the location as it just looks prefect for the mood, situation and genre. The dull colours and overload of grey concrete buildings looks great with the miserable cloudy sky aswell just made it a brilliant place to film. Researching through alot of thrillers gave us an idea of a common location for films like these and the one that caught our eye the most was Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. A large majority of the film is set in quite rundown and nasty looking areas like for example in the opening, with the two guys selling stuff down an alley, to then later be chased around near some industrial looking areas. the shot also fits with the fact that they are being chased into a dead of nothing but trouble, but in Lock Stock they get away. The two places look very similar with the puddles and dull colours, which is sort of what we were going for.

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

The change from the preliminary task to the actual thriller opening was a big step up as we were able to put a lot more time and effort into it to make it more how we wanted to, with the planning of such jobs as location finding and fonts we were able to make it more personal to how we thought it should be. With the time we were given we were able to go research potential areas in which we could film in rather than just in and around school. This made it able to also get a wide range of different shots types as well, using long alleys or high up places like we did in the shot going up stairs. with the final location ending up to be Anglia Square, we were able to look around and already plan shots we would take before we even started filming, which was great help when planning. More time meant we could also go into more detail with areas such as casting and props, with casting we could get people from school who we knew were talented in acting. Sam was a key example because he is currently taking A-Level Drama and was able to create some fantastic emotions which look perfect for the effect we were trying to create. With a bigger area to film in meant we could get a lot of variety in are shots, we could also start to use small details of the location to really create excitement and variety in the film. To do this, I added a shot reverse shot of the protagonist running down a ramp to the subway and coming round the corner of a railing. While running down he places his hand on the railing and shortly after, the shot returns to him.

Shot reverse shots are a great way to keep variety in a scene when there's not much else you can do, they also help to build on the tense the scene might have, for example by showing just how tight he's holding onto something and maybe if he's shaking etc. shot reverse shot is also used at the beginning where it shows the terror on his face, cuts to the tight grip of enigmatic bag and then back to his eyes. Shot reverse shots are very commonly used and are very smooth if done correctly, an example of a brilliant shot reverse shot comes from Double Indemnity with the insurance rep Walter, starts flirting with Phyllis. Alot of the research we did come from various thrillers and noir films including Double Indemnity which was very influential when thinking about lighting for the thriller, for example with the use of the sun coming through the venation blinds into the dark gloomy room.

When we first started the planning for the thriller opening, it required alot of team work to organise and prepare the things we needed to do. Although at times it was hard to get things right and agree on things, it made the whole thing very much easier and making anything is always better when done by more than one person. In terms of my edit, i think overall it went alright, in the early stages i was getting feedback all saying sort of the same thing which was to fix the sound and remove any wind you here and i very much agreed with it. the wind was a huge problem when it  came to editing as nearly every shot had loud pieces of wind recording in it which was very of putting when watching, when planning though we decided to bring a second camera which we would use a microphone with to record background sounds and non-diegetic recordings to crisp it up. i think overall the most important thing i have learnt when filming and editing is how to keep an interesting  fast and exciting pace in it. With the edit i did, the whole opening was basically a chase and so keeping a good pace was key to making it intense and wild. I think the way mine does it by having alot of movement in the shots and even using a shaky cam effect in some shots as well as tilt shots.

Thriller - Rough Cut (Unfinished)

Actors (Unfinished)

The actors we got for our thriller opening are perfect representations of the characters we are trying to create, and so it wasnt hard to find actors we needed. We also only require a couple of actors for our opening so it wont be any trouble.

Sam Todd (Edward)

Sam Todd will be great for our opening as in school, he is taking A-Level drama, which means he'll make our opening look alot more real as he can create perfect emotions to represent the character he'll be playing. the style of clothing he wears also fits the character with hoodies, skinny jeans etc. Meaning that he will also ressemble him well in person.

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