Thriller Film - Final Edits

I have 2 final cuts of my thriller film.

The first:

The second, is a black and white version:

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

Question 6) What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing this product?

Question 5) How did you attract or address your audience?

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

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

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

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

Referring to Slide 3, talking about the effect of the soundtrack - this is a clip of the 'Shower Scene' from Psycho:

Referring to Slide 3, talking about use of soundtrack corresponding with visuals - clip of 'Pope' and Jay's girlfriend, the song 'All Out Of Love' by Air Supply, 2009:

Filming the Filming

This is a short video I edited together, remaining footage from our shoot to create out-takes:

DRAFT Q7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

DRAFT Q6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

DRAFT Q5) How did you attract or address your audience?

Mise-en-scene Aspects the Audience will identify/empathise/recognise/engage with?

Action;

Our film includes the anticipation of what’s going to happen in the interaction between the two characters. The audience remains on edge throughout the piece, waiting for it to be revealed, yet the cliffhanger enhances the suspense of what action will take place between the two characters. We created a sense of the males’ approach being imminent and unstoppable, the audience just being prepared for the male and female to meet. I think this engages with the audience, the tension drawing the in and keeping the edge on the whole production. The fast-pace of our opening appeals to our young audience, ensuring they remain engaged.

Characters;

Our male character is recognisable for our audience, the common and usual businessman, the idea for this character was to make the audience feel the male is someone they would commonly see. Yet striking fear into the stereotype by enhancing the idea of his dark secret under the surface.

While the female character allows the audience to empathise with her situation, especially our female audience, may be able to identify with her panicked and frantic frustration and actions to try and escape her entrapment. This is engaging for the audience as they feel that their actions may be similar; having reliability and realism, where the audience members feel they can identify with our young female audience.

Costume;

As previously discussed, our male character dressed in a business suit, connotes sophistication and a respectable character who is functional in society. However, I think the audience are quick to identify that the costume is a juxtaposition of the character. Our male character seemingly responsible for the entrapment of our female.

On the other hand, our female characters’ costume is something our young female audience can identify with. Her outfit reasonably casual, the audience able to identify that she appears ordinary and therefore are able to empathise with her and engage with her apprehension and fear of the situation.

Lighting;

The ambient back-lighting of our male in the first scenes is recognisable for our audience. Back-lighting creating a silhouetted, anonymous figure, this has connotations with him being a dangerous and villainous character. The audience are able to identify the generic archetype of a businessman, but are able to engage and be intrigued by the unnerving entrapment hidden from the rest of society.

The lighting was also something we used to display our male characters’ presence. In the scene of our female with the light coming under the door, allows the audience to recognise his nearing approach, identifying the females’ fear and being able to engage with her panic of his presence. The audience may able to empathise with her fright and suspense, the viewer being more aware of both characters’ situations, able to recognise that the male is getting closer, building the suspense.

The chiaroscuro lighting, a thriller convention, enhances the reinforcement of our film being in the thriller genre. The audience being able to recognise the contrast of light and dark, building suspense and creating a curious atmosphere.

Soundtrack;

Our soundtrack builds intensity, matching the visual suspense of our film. The more modern sound allows our young audience to be able to engage with the production. The soundtrack compliments our thriller film, adding to the suspense of the action.

Use of Enigma;

The enigma of our thriller film opening is the mystery between the characters’ interaction, which turns out to be our cliffhanger. The audience is aware of the male characters’ approach, suspense and tension being built by him getting closer and entering the house. The audience left questioning the outcome and fate of our female.

Camera Movement;

Tracking shot of both our female and male characters allows the audience to recognise and draw their attention towards their movements. 

Identify explicit intertextual references which audience can recognise:

Narrative Structure;

We have chosen to display our plot-line using a linear narrative. Where the order of events appear to the viewer in chronological order. Like Animal Kingdom, the use of this narrative structure makes it easy for the audience to engage and understand the events that occur.

However, this type of narrative structure may be unexpected as thriller films often have a complex narrative structure, to keep the audience guessing what will happen next. The use of false clues, which Alfred Hitchcock called ‘McGuffins’, can confuse the audience and leave them guessing till the end. Hitchcock said his intention was “to give the public a good, healthy mental shake-up.” He popularised the use of ‘MacGuffins’ with his 1935 film, ‘The 39 Steps.’ Where the use of a ‘MacGuffin’ makes the audience feel that information is useful, yet later in the narrative plot it no longer appears important, leading the audience astray.

In contrast to this, our choice of linear narratives make the opening easily understandable, so not to put the audience off with the complexity.

Title Screen;

My title screen uses a quote from James Rollins’ 2007 novel, ‘The Judas Strain’: “It's not always rocket science,

sometimes a door is just a door.” I chose to use this quote in order to immediately inform the audience that the following thriller film opening is rather straightforward. The use of the quote allows the audience to realise that the door is the factor in being a ‘wall’ between the two characters, preventing their interactions. The suspense that’s built from the males’ approach is blocked by he door, enhancing the understanding of the cliffhanger and increasing the tension of the outcome. 

This is similar to the opening of Quentin Tarintino’s 2003 Kill Bill film, where a quote is used as the opening. The use of the Old Klingon Proverb, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” The quote immediately setting the theme of the whole production, with laboured heavy breathing being heard as a sound-bridge under the quote. Similar to my own production with the sound-bridge growing in volume, the footsteps approaching.

Our audience may feel they have a greater understanding of our film if they spot this inter-textual reference, being able to relate our film to another, successful film.

Transitions;

Fade to black - dissolve, indicates mystery and ambiguity

Our dissolve transition of fading to black between the title credits holds indications of mystery and ambiguity, immediately creating tension to what is going to happen. The audience are expecting for there to be a sense of thrill created by the production, and to a point, this is immediately confirmed by the fade to black between text. This appeals to our audience as it relates to the thriller genre, a familiar convention.

Our quick transitions of the cliffhanger add to the fast-pace of the film, the two images almost merging into one as the two separate characters are now so close.

Camera Angles;

One camera shot, which is a thriller convention, is an extreme close-up. The shot of our female characters’ eye connotes her fear of her situation. The eye being ‘the window to the soul’ displays how the audience are truly engaging with her traumatic entrapment, her failed determination to escape has left her helpless.

This shot was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film, Psycho. If the audience recognise the inter-textual reference, they may perceive this as a hint of our females’ fate.

Another thriller camera shot convention is the tilted shot, where the camera is slightly tilted, this is disorientating for the audience, throwing them into confusion before they understand the scene. Our tilted shot of the male entering the house, has connotations with the idea of his intentions being wrong. The shot at a slanted angle, for some, may show how he’s not to be trusted and looks normal, but there’s an essence of him being dangerous and unforgiving.

This shot is an intertextual reference to Carol Reed’s 1949 film The Third Man, where the tilt or ‘dutch angle’ connoted disorientating and perplexity, putting the audience on edge.

Cliffhanger;

Our cliffhanger is the hook for our film. As our production is only the first 2 minute opening, it must encourage the potential audience to continue to watch the rest of the film. We’ve ensure this through the enhanced atmosphere of fear, suspense and tension being built. Our cliffhanger is also ambiguous for a reason; the audience is left to questioning whether the female has been killed or escaped. The use of this, appeals to the audience to continue to want to continue watching.

The quick cuts between the characters enhance the idea of them now being so close, and the same shot used again from the beginning of the film puts the events into perspective. Whether it is reality or her imagination. I think this really does appeal to our young audience, they remain intrigued by the plot and our female character’s outcome.

DRAFT Q4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

'Script' for video-diary response:

Age:
Our audience age demographic is identified to be around our own age, around; 16 - 28 years old. This age group is able to identify with our young female character, being able to relate and identify their own reaction to entrapment with her actions. This can relate to Animal Kingdom with Joshua ‘J’ Cody representing youth with the topic of drug, alcohol and criminal activity. Young people watching the film can feel that they identify with the young actor and their feelings towards the context of our film, similarly to our own film with the females’ panic and frustration at the entrapment.

Gender:

The majority of thriller films main audience are males. However, I still think women are able to identify with our young female actress and be able to relate to her. Psycho is similar, females being able to identify with Marian, and her determined mindset. Contrasting with Once Upon A Time In America with their male representation; the three males dressed in suits, similarly, our male character appearing ‘normal’ is relatable to many; witnessing a businessman returning home, but hiding this dangerous secret.

Mainly a male dominated audience, but can be identifiable to a woman.

Ethnicity:

Both of our actors in the film are white British, so it may be easiest for others of the same ethnicity to be able to identify with the film. In our short opening, it doesn’t include a diverse reflection of multiple ethnicities, but this is not a focus point in our film. I think gender is more of a focus than ethnicity in terms of our own production; the ethnicity of those involved doesn’t determine the characters intentions. In contrast to this, films like Pulp Fiction have a more diverse representation of multiple ethnicities and nationalities, this may allow more people to be able to identify with the characters and relate to the film. Our film could be seen to be most identifiable to British people, as shot in Britain, the location of the scenes will be most common for those who live in similar locations, associating the male character with this normal location, emphasising the juxtaposition with the entrapment truth.

Media Interests:

Our audience may already be aware of classic and modern thriller films. This may make the audience feel they have better knowledge and understanding of our films’ context if they can recognise the included inter-textual references of our film, referencing other thrillers. This enhances 

Films like The Dark Night, Inception, Pulp Fiction, The Silence Of The Lambs, Kill Bill, The Third Man, Psycho, Once Upon A Time In America and Essex Boys are all well-known and popular thriller films; a few of these are referenced in our own film. This can be inspiration gained from a characters’ persona or even a single camera shot.

For example, Psycho=extreme close-up of the eye. Kill Bill 2=claustrophobic location. Essex Boys=back-lighting.

The audience recognising the intertextual references may be able to realise the elaborate symbolism of the chosen reference. Or even be able to anticipate the following scene, expecting something to occur.

Consumption of Popular Culture & Lifestyle:

We claimed that the main distribution would be at a mainstream cinema, this is due to young people needing an affordable price for the chance to watch a film. On average, as discussed in Question 3, mainstream cinemas provide a cheaper price than other cinemas. This links to our audiences’ lifestyle. Also, the film schedule will need to be able to work around their normal lifestyle, for example; the film being shown in the evenings to fit around education and work commitments.

The promotion of our film may also reflect our audiences lifestyle; with much more being accessible online with the power of social media, this may be a large aspect which will be focused on in the marketisation of our production. Relating it to the thriller Gone Girl; which had a large presence on social media with advertisements on websites, YouTube trailers and sneak-peeks, as well as twitter and Facebook pages promoting the film. This is something that we could definitely also apply to our own film, with the presence of platforms like netflix, love film and youtube being easily accessible to a larger audience, with many people now having an internet connection, using online packaging for films is even more common.

Other Media the Audience may enjoy:

TV Programmes like The Blacklist may also appeal to our audience because of them being based around a male businessman, something unsuspecting. Yet beneath the surface is a labyrinth of the dark and dangerous underworld of criminality. With the simple suit costume, nothing out of the ordinary, there are similarities between this character and our own male.

Films like Kill Bill may also appeal to our audience because of a determined female character, who has a gritty and strong attitude, where she confronts other males. Our female character continues to battle against her confinement, trying to fins a way to escape.

Issues we Explored:

In our own film we explored contemporary issues of moral danger. The decision to create a male character who appeals to be normal, yet under the surface is a dark and dangerous truth. We wanted to maintain an underlying issue of this subconscious panic and paranoia of the unknown. The mystery of this man, on what appears to be, him making his way home. Including the unconscious fear of the darkness and claustrophobic locations. Everyone having this innate fear of entrapment and not being able to escape from a situation.

Our film could be linked to real cases, similar to ‘real-life’ or ‘based on a true story’ films. Where the audience can experience the vicarious thrill of watching terrible, and possibly real, events from the safety of their cinema seats.

Thriller films like American Sniper, directed by Clint Eastwood, are based on ‘real-life events’ this can link to our own film through being able to link our content to real-life cases.

Our own film can be linked to the hostage case of Elisabeth Fritzl which emerged in 2008, the woman being concealed for 24 years by her father holding her hostage in his Austrian house.

DRAFT Q3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

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

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

Audience Profiling

This Prezi explores the audience demographic for the opening of my thriller film, focusing on; age, gender, social class, nationality and ethnicity.

Film Poster

We created a film poster for our production; using Photoshop to edit.

Soundtrack

Our soundtrack, credit to James Coy for editing the audio:

Character Profiles

In the opening of our film, only two characters are involved. Here are their character profiles:

Hannah, is playing the role of our female in the opening of the film.
Playing the young, and in her position, vulnerable girl.
Having a sense of weakness and defencelessness, but adapting this to be more contemporary with the fact she put up a struggle in the situation. That she's powerful and determined enough to attempt escape than accept defeat.

Hannah was brilliant in her willingness to listen to what we wanted to create and help with shaping her movements to appear natural while the lighting and camera angle still worked in the shot.
Being a friend of ours, Hannah was someone we could easily get hold of and was reliable in terms of fitting in with the filming time schedule we had.

In the opening to our short film, Robert played the role of the male character.
For costume; able to supply us with a business-like shirt, tie, shoes, trousers and suit-coat.
The look created with the costume is just what we wanted. Even the small, specific details of the shoes creating the right diegetic sound when we recorded down the alleyway.
We had easy access to all the locations; it was easy to match our schedule with Roberts. Ensuring we had enough time to do run-throughs; testing everything out before filming properly, in the daylight. Then arranging to film with darker lighting, before it got too dark for the cameras.
As Robert is my Father, he was a reliable member of the cast. It was also easy to explain and run him through our ideas before commencing filming.

Storyboard

This is the storyboard for the opening of our thriller.

Including descriptions as well as basic images we would like to create when filming:

Also, these are the main shots in our film; analysis of Mise-En-Scene, Location, Lighting, Scene Content, Character Movement, Soundtrack, Transitions and Camera Angles:

Shot List

After altering our decision with the opening of our thriller. This is the developed overview of the Shot List:

Candidate Information on screen - Sound-bridge of footsteps.

Fades to black, extreme close-up on her eyes opening.

Cuts to man; low angled close-up of his feet walking down the alleyway.

Cuts to woman; looking around in confusion, panicked, testing the door, but it’s locked.

Cuts to man; his hand by his side as he walks, clenches his fist.

Transitions to woman’s fist hitting against the door.

Cuts to man; straightening his tie as he walks down the alleyway.

Cuts to woman; slamming the side of her body against the door.

Cuts to man; walking down the driveway of the house.

Cuts to woman; a high-angled over-the-shoulder shot of her resting her head against the door.

She slams her hand against the door, looking up at the sound of the opening front door.

Then hear the sound of a light switch, the light entering through the bottom of her door.

Cuts to man; an over-the-shoulder shot sees him looking at the door, camera turns with him.

He walks towards the door.

Cuts to woman; Leaning closer to the door again, intrigued, hopeful.

Cuts to man; wider shot, of him squatting down in front of the door. Zooms into him.

Split screen; pans to side, revealing her, both in similar positioning, facing each-other, split-screen.

Cuts to black.

Door creaking sound over black screen. Title revealed.

In another format; this is our Shot List which will be useful for the characters in reference to the shots they appear in:

Mood-Board Mind-Map

This is a Mind-Map Mood-Board, showing images of our own as well as other intertextual reference images we gained inspiration from or relate to the shot we'd like to create.
Focusing around features of Lighting, Characters, Camera Angles and Lighting:

Case Study: Animal Kingdom

This is my Case Study of the film Animal Kingdom.

Thriller Conventions:

After watching the film, the classic thriller conventions that are used include:

The constant link back to the families criminal nature, drug taking and killing, reminding the audience of what 'J' is having to live amongst.

Right at the beginning of the film, J's mother dies, his emotionless and numb reaction to having to deal with it immediately sparks the audience's interest in the character. Questioning if he's able to calmly deal tithe situation or just didn't have an emotional attachment to his mother, or if the scene was just too traumatising for him to be able to express any sort of emotion.
This highlights the dangerous world he's having to survive in, people being killed around him. Yet he must try and escape and survive every time.

The world J lives in is almost animalistic. The family unit are torn apart by their survival instinct. Being wary towards each-others motives. Working against the police force constantly, yet having to encounter them. Even in the title 'Animal Kingdom' the idea of hierarchy and food chain is what the characters are living in. The aim to survive and be the 'Top Dog.'

The use of sound bridge, connects scenes of the film, allowing the viewer to anticipate the next scene; building tension to what may occur.
The soundtrack is, in my opinion, one of the really essential factors which makes this film so spectacular to watch.
The use of the non-diegetic soundtrack, where limited or no diegetic sound is used, creates a completely different tone to what it would be visually. In the scenes of J's Uncles being arrested and finding his dead girlfriends body amongst rubbish, the non-diegtic soundtrack has an eerily calming sound, contrasting the emotional scenes.
The soundtrack complimenting the action, building intensity of the sound matching the audiences excitement for the thrill of the action.

Case Study: The Third Man

This is my Case Study on 'The Third Man.'

Thriller Characteristics

Case Study: Psycho

Case Study on the Alfred Hitchcock film: Psycho.

Soundtrack Intertextual References

My Case Study on Soundtrack Intertextual References between 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' and 'Kill Bill 2.'