Top left: Using a dissolve. We used this to show that the scene is returning back to the present time from a flashback from the past. We also used a darker lighting to show it was getting dark.
Top center: A typical theme for a thriller. This is a medium shot of the detective and suspect in the interview room. We made sure we showed the tape recorder and surroundings to le the audience knw wherer it was.
Top right: We showed the protagonists following a girl. We made the character steriotypical making the protagonists big and scary, dressed in black and confident whilst the victim is small and female. She is dressed in a way that shows she is feminine and walks hunched and fast making her seem wary. The low angle we used to shoot this shot made the villans look even more big and dominant and the victim more vunerable and small.
Middle left: This shot make enigma in the scene. In the previous the detective asks “can you tell us where you were at the time of the attack?” immediately following with a flashback of where the suspect was. He sees something and hides which makes the audience ask why he’s hiding and what he’s seen. The flashback then stops and the next scene is of the interigation room again. The suspect replies “I don’t need to answer that, why am I even here?” which then makes the viewer wonder why he is not saying where he was.
Middle Center: Another typical theme for a thriller having a dead body. After the gang beat up the victim, they show her lying on the floor, the ringleader of the gang gives the body a kick making the scene even more horrific and shocking and once again creates enigma and makes the audience ask why the girl got attacked.
Middle Right: We showed the suspect walking home from work and he’s just about to walk up and see the attack. The sillohetted tree and dark lighting creates a bleak, scary and mysterious feel to the scene. It contrast with the happy sounds of birds tweeting in the background.
Bottom Left: A prop we used fo the interrogation scene. It was a good idea because the mise en scene we used really conveyed that the set was an investigation room.
Bottom Center: This is a shot of the suspect after he has been questioned in relation to the attack. We used dramatic irony and showed the audience that the suspect didn’t do the attack although the detective doesn’t know this and thinks he did. We intended the suspect to come across as the antagonist character and got him to wear bright clothes that didn’t seem evil or criminal. Also we cast a character with an innocent look about him so he seemed even more like he didn’t commit a crime.
Bottom Right: Camera use. We wanted to shoot a variety of angles and distances throughout the short film and though this angle on the suspects eyes. If the susect was guilty he would look more shifty and wouldn’t make eye contact. So we wanted him to look innocent so we did an eyeline match making the suspect look straight at the detective being sincere.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
A gang
We cast a group of teenage/ young adult gang made up of males and the viewer can see nearer the beginning of he scene that two members of the gang are white. This is a negative representation. The below is a screen shot from the movie ‘the Lincoln lawyer,’ and although both gangs are different they are both represented as intimidating and wearing dark colours such as black which stereotypically represents the protagonists in movies such as Luther.
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| The gang from Our thriller |
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| The Gang from 'The Lincoln Lawyer' |
How is the gang represented?
Mise en scene and editing:
We made sure the characters wore dark hoodies to make them seem even more intimidating and scary. We edited our shots together and used folly sound such as a hard kick when the ringleader of the gang kicked the victim.
Camera angles and lighting:
The shots of the gang were nearly always shot from a slightly low angle to emphasize their size and power over the victim. They are filmed in a dark lighting to make they seem mysterious and people with darker personalities. We did one shot from a POV ass one of the gang members. This gives a fee of how they are all running towards the girl and how they are catching up with her fast.
Why did we represent the characters in this way?
We represented them in this way because stereotypically, males are the villains and we wanted the audience to be able to relate to it and other thrillers. The gang are violent and beat up a female and we did this to create anger amongst the viewers and a dislike for the characters who are clearly the antagonists.
Who is our target audience?
Our audience is for teenagers and young adults and we are going to make the certificate age 15 as its unsuitable for anybody younger because of the amount of violence. We also think that an older audience won’t perhaps enjoy it as much as its quite shocking and some scenes may be a bit disturbing for some people.
The Female character (victim)
Once again. This is another negative representation as it makes the female seem vunerable and weak.
How is she represented?
Mise en scene and editing:
She wears a skirt and jewlery to represent this. And she is small compared to the characters in the gang in height anyway so this makes her seem even more defensless.
Camera Angles and sound:
We nearly always shot the female character from a high angle or surrounded by the gang so she always looks small, weak and powerless. We had a calm but minor non- diagetic soundtrack playing in the backgroup which works as a soundbridge over all the scenes. It shows how mysterious and unfriendly the situation is.
Why did we represent the character in this way?
We wanted the audience to be horrified by the scene where a group of 4+ men attacked a small girl. She was dressed in a skirt and jewelry making her seem even more feminine and makes her seem sweet and vunerable. She doesn’t look fierce or strong so we hope the audience can feel sympathy and emotion towards the character and want her case to be sorted out in the rest of the movie.
The male character (suspect/ antagonist)
The suspect is male and white. This is a positive representation as he comes across as the antagonist character.
How is he represented?
Mise en scene and editing:
He wears brght colours making him instantly seem like he is the antagonist because in movies the protagonists genrally wears dark and mysterious colours. He is very open with the way he moves and doesn’t try to hide himself away. He is clearly upset about what happened because we did a lot of dissolves showing he was thinking back to the attack scene and then looking upset when he remembered and we cut back to him in the present. The lighting only lights half his face which creats enigma and mystery.
Camera angles and sound
We shot the suspect from a low angle making him seem like he has power and we did a close up shot of his eyes as he directly looks at the detective as if he has nothing to hide. We have diagetic sound of the detective and suspect speakinging and the non diagetic soundtrack playing througout,
Why did we represent the character in this way?
We wanted him to seem innocent although have an air of mystery about him as he saw the attack but he’s denying it. We want the audeience to like him but to be unsure of his motives which creates enigma.
The Detective
Inspector hunt is quite patronizing and you can tell he’s from a middle class background because of his job and the smart quit he’s wearing. This is a positive representation although I don’t think the audience will like the character very much.
How is he represented?
Mise en scene:
He wears a suit and the tie is quite messy and his hair so you can tell he’s quite laid back about his job and knows he is going to do well however he looks as he acts quite cocky. He is in a room with no windows and has a tape recorder and a table so you can tell what his job it and what he’s doing.
Camera angles:
He is shot mostly from low and eye level angles and close up which show he has status and power. And when there is a close up of his mouth this could represent that he knows what he’s talking about.
Why did we represent the character in this way?
We wanted the audience to know that he’s the dominant character in the situation and to feel like he’s a bit of a douche as he is putting the suspect down constantly even though the audience probably thinks he’s innocent. He’s very cocky and self-confidant which could be annoying to some people.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The aim for our audience is for teenagers and young adults between the ages of 15 and 30. Obviously older views can watch and enjoy it but the language and themes of the thriller is quite modern and swear words used could perhaps shock and offend
An older audience.
An older audience would have grown up with legendary thriller films such as strangers on a train by Alfred Hitchcock.
Strangers on a train
Most 50’s thrillers were a lot less violent than modern thrillers. In the strangers on a train trailer, when somebody got shot there was a element of comedy about it. They made it very clear there was a love story wrapped into the story and not many modern thrillers would do this, which I think is a bad idea as it may attract more females and create a wider audience.
- The credits are quite cheesy and look like they belong in a cartoon, which makes the movie not seem very serious and not quite so sinister. Whereas in a modern thriller a more somber text would be used normally.
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| Credits from Strangers on a Train. |
-There are still similarities because the protagonist is wearing black and anonymous and the antagonist looks vulnerable and wear lighter colours.
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| The antagonist and Protagonist from the movie Strangers on a train. |
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| The protagonists and antagonist from our thriller. This movie is more for Males because usually they enjoy movies and games with violence in more than girls. Females may also not like the movie due to the negative representation on the main female character, which makes her seem weak and dependable. Below is 2 graphs showing the ages and genders who watched the thrillers ‘The Bourne supremacy’ and ‘Good Will hunting’ In both the age group who watched the thrillers most was 15-24 and the gender that watched thrillers more are male. We aimed to achieve the same audience in our thriller. |
5. how did you attract / address your audience?
I think the audeince will like our film because we have used steriotypical charachters (the girl being the victim, the protagonist being annonomus males) and steriotypical scenes such as a brutal attack happening in a dark alleyway.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?
Camera
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| Before (our preliminary) |
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| After (our thriller opening) Camera angles. I think in the preliminary, because we had Joe in our group, our camera work was very good from the beginning as he was great at getting a tight frame all the time and with our input on ideas for camera angle it worked out really well. The only thing that we improved on with our camera work was our confidence and how we had the confidence to use more unusual and unique angles to make our thriller more interesting. We also used some shallow depth of field in the first scene, which we didn’t use at all in our preliminary. Sound Editing We had a non-diagetic soundtrack playing in the background of both videos. Both were parallel soundtracks and complimented the films very much. We added some folly sounds (such as a kick, ambient sounds and birds tweeting) into our second video making it more effective than the preliminary, which only had the diagetic sounds recorded in. Visual editing and continuity editing
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| After (the thriller opening) In the preliminary we only used straight cuts. In the Thriller, we used dissolves and fades throughout the film as well as putting the credits on the page while there were images moving instead of just on a black screen at the end like we did in our preliminary. We did really good continuity editing in both films making sure that every detail was perfect. Such as in the preliminary when jack puts his hat on and when he goes through the door. We also filmed the scene when the girl a boy talked over a few days so we had to make sure the chairs were in exactly the same position. And then in the thriller, we made sure that the female character and the gang was standing in the same places when we cut to different camera angle. We also had the main male character opening the door and the detective pressing the button on the recorder so we had to make sure it looked although they did it in one smooth movement. Character Building and construction of the story. In the preliminary we don’t really build up the characters much as there was not much time so the audience don’t really know anything about them whereas in the thriller opening, you could tell; The main Male character works in a kitchen as a chef: We can tell this because of his clothing, (an apron and white hat) the tables, the sign that says red wine on it, the noises of plate crashing in the background and fire extinguisher.  The detective has works in the police station and is interrogating the male character, because of the room with no windows, the table with the detective and suspect sitting either side, the tape recorder and how the detective is in a suit.  |
The story in our thriller is a lot more built up because we had more time and used 3 different scenes to make it more interesting. The preliminary was shot all in the same place. There are also more characters in the thriller and unlike in the preliminary the audience doesn’t know what’s going on and what’s going to happen so its creates enigma unlike your typical romantic movie.
Disappointing
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