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

The two characters in my film are very conventional to the thriller genre and my target audience can relate to both of them, this is why decided to include these two characters in my film. 
The main young female character is represented as lonely and weak at first, as she is alone at night-time in an industrial area, this was to build a relationship with the audience as the audience will be engaged with this character to see her background and if she is in danger, also this character would appeal to my audience as they would feel attached to her, this is up until the perception of this character changes from innocent to dangerous, which will build anticipation in our film, this is why this character is included in my thriller film. 
This character will be wearing a a white dress with slippers, and will be holding a toy. 

The second character the male is represented as a typical youth that is out at night time which could be dangerous in urban areas, and is seen to confront the girl, this engages the audience and builds anticipation as they want to know what will happen. The male character is presented in a stereotypical way as he is in dark casual clothes and is a teenager, so some of the audience can relate to this character; this would either appeal to the audience or create more suspense as they anticipate what will happen in the opening sequence to both characters. 

Our audience can build a relationship with the characters as they will feel that they can relate to them so will be engaged with the narrative, and will be willing for them to survive.

Evalution Post Introduction

My brief was to make an opening scene to a thriller film, which should be two minutes long. My group consisted of Harry Hyett, Hannah Mahoney and myself. There were many roles in the production of my opening scene, and each one was important for the production of the opening scene. There was the role of actor and actress which was very important to showing the audience the narrative of the opening sequence. The role of director, which is important for the production of the opening scene as without a director there wouldn’t be any order or purpose to the opening scene as the rest of the group needed instructions from the director, such as where to stand in each shot, what camera angle to use and what lighting to use for each shot. The role of producer is another vital role for the production of the opening scene as the producer, whose role is to help supervise the production of the opening scene, and having an important input into the way the film is made. Another role in the production of the opening scene was costumes and make up, this role was important as it gives each character a personality and can build the relationship between the characters on screen and the audience, which is vital for thriller films for there to be a tense atmosphere. Editors of the film make sure the final copy of the opening scene is well presented and carries forward the ideas of the narrative right through to the audience. This is why the role of editor is so important. Director of photography was another important role as they had the job of recording the entire opening scene and was in charge of the way each shot was made, they followed instructions from the director but also added input into the shots themselves, this is why this role was very important to the production of the opening scene. The screenplay writer was in charge of managing the narrative of the opening sequence and the events on screen, without a screenplay writer there wouldn’t be a narrative for the opening sequence, this means that this role is very important. The job of the music co-ordinator was to manage the music that would be added to the opening sequence at the editing stage and to mix the music into the openin g sequence so that it adds an atmosphere to the opening sequence, so this made it a very important role in the production of the opening sequence.

I had three roles in the production of the opening sequence, actor, music co-ordinator and producer. I was responsible for the music that was used in the final cut of the opening sequence, the production of the opening sequence going to plan, and with the role of actor, my responsibility was to stay in character, which would make my character and the opening sequence more believable for the audience.

As a group I feel that we worked well throughout the production of the opening sequence to a thriller film. We all had roles to play in the production and every member of the group participated in the production.

Overall I feel that I have made a successful thriller film, as it has an engaging narrative, which has a suspenseful atmosphere throughout, this is due to the work that our group put into the opening sequence, and the group working well together. The atmosphere that was sustained throughout the opening sequence was a suspenseful atmosphere, and the narrative was also unique and engaging for the audience.

Thriller comparison- Miss Georgiou

Do you think you have created a successful thriller sequence and why?

In my opinion I feel that I created a successful thriller sequence as it had some typical conventions of the thriller genre that the audience know and would recognise the sequence as a thriller sequence, but I also created a thriller genre that does challenge some typical conventions of the thriller genre, for example with the female character that goes against the stereotypical roles that young girls play in other thriller films. We included this element as we felt that this would attract other audiences because our thriller film is different to others, but is still conventional to the thriller genre that the audience like.

Which micro element, best shows your creativity and understanding of thriller conventions the most?
The micro-element of the young girl who turns out to be the killer shows how creative our opening sequence is as it hasn't been done in any other thriller film before, and the audience would like this because its something different instead of films that follow stereotypical basic conventions. This shows that we understand the thriller genre as we had to research to see what is acceptable in the thriller genre, what the audience like in thriller films and what films have used conventions that we were thinking of using in our own thriller opening sequence, so this research led to us using this Young female killer as it was original and was from our research what the audience like.

Compare your opening sequence to a successful thriller and explain how your thriller is conventional. Consider the narrative, representation of characters, sounds, editing, mise-en-scene.
 
I am comparing our own thriller film to a very popular thriller film that is Scream, this film uses a main killer, that chases people and is notorious for murdering them. The women characters are often killed and portrayed as dumb. Scream often uses fast paced soudtracked for the chase scenes that build intensity as the murder is coming closer in the scene, they do this to build suspense, and is popular in other thriller films. Along with this fast paced soundtrack the use of fast paced editing, is used to build suspense in some scenes, this is also conventional to the thriller genre. The murder in scream always uses a knife to kill his victims, this is quite important iconography for the film and the character is recognised by this.
our own thriller film is conventional to the thriller genre as it follows some of the conventions that are used in Scream, for example we decided to give our main character a knife, this was done to show the audience as soon as they see her with it that she is the killer in the scene. Other conventions that we followed are the tense soundtrack and fast paced editing when there is a murder scene, we decided to follow these conventions as they're effective at building suspense amongst the audience, and relate to the thriller genre.

Audience feedback- Miss Georgiou

Explain why audience feedback is important to a production?

Audience feedback is an important part of the production of a film, as it allows the film makers to alter the film before they release it to the public, if they need too. The audience feedback is important as it would be the feedback that they would get once the film is released on a larger scale which could make the film a flop. So once the feedback is recived the film makers change the parts that the audience didn't like, to prevent negative reviews for something easy to change.

How did you receive audience feedback from your target audience?

As a class we all reviewed each others opening scene, so we had enough feedback on our opening scene to make worthwhile changes on our opening scene if that’s what the audience wanted. We showed the audience a slideshow that had the basic ideas of the narrative and characters, so the audience had an idea as to what it was about, and then we showed them the opening sequence.

How would this feedback benefit your production and the industry?

The feedback will be very valuable to our production, as it shows us the things that are easy to change that will make the audience enjoy the film even more, this is a positive thing for us as it makes our film better than it would have been. The feedback from audiences can benefit the industry as it might prevent the film from not making any money in the box office, as the feedback allows the film producers to change aspects of the film that the audience don’t like. The industry also benefit from the audience feedback as it shows them what trends in the film industry there are and what films are popular at the moment so the industry can produce more films that are more likely to be successful.

Constructive Comments made by Groups and how used the comments to improve our film.

'Narrative not clear', Some of our audience stated that the narrative wasn’t clear, this is a big problem, and some of our group noticed this too. so to make the narrative clearer we added more shots and this helped to make the narrative clearer.

'Shots are too dark', the filters we used over our opening sequence were too dark for some of our audiences, we didn’t realise this problem until we showed our audience. to change this we removed some filters and brightened the shots up so the shots are clearer.

'Sounds too quiet',  For some of our audience the sound for our thriller opening scene wasn’t clear and was too quiet, we noticed this fault as well, so it make the necessary change we edited the sounds so they were at max volume, and we noticed that the editing software we used had placed the sound out of time of our events on screen so we changed that also. This is now fully resolved and the sound is at the best quality it could be.

'Credit size too small', some of our audience stated that the credit size was too small to see so we enlarged the credits and placed some of them so they are clearer to see.

Rough Cut- Miss miller

Why it was important to make a rough cut?

A rough cut of a scene or film is important to the making of the film as it allows a time for feedback on the rough cut which can help make the scene better, a rough cut can be used to transfer ideas from producers and directors and for them to see if they work well in the scene or not, which is valuable as without this the film could possibly be not as good as expected. The feedback that we received was from our peers who in which each group decided what they liked and disliked about each groups opening scene, and added some advice that could improve the opening scene. we presented our rough cut at quite an advanced stage in the production of our opening sequence, but still allowed for changes, our rough cut includes the sequence, which was edited, sounds which were also edited and the credits. This is why the presentation and feedback from our rough cut was important as we could help improve our opening sequence.

For the presentation of our rough cut we uploaded it to Youtube.

   Why audiences feedback is important ?

The audience's feedback is  very important, it is very important because the target audience of our opening scene is who the audience of the rough cut are so the feedback will be very relevant

 To our opening sequence. The feedback that we will receive will be reliable as our group is not providing feedback it is our peers who also know what would make our opening sequence better. 

How we got received feedback?

To show our media class the rough cut we also produced a presentation which explained the basic narrative, the characters, the setting and our inspirations.

After the presentation the class then watched our rough cut opening sequence. Once the rough cut had finished we asked for questions from the class about our rough cut.

Peer Group Reviewing - To receive feedback and give feedback to other groups we filled in sheets that  everyone was given, and after every group had presented we were given the feedback which stated what mark we were given by each group, what went well in our rough cut, and how it could be 'even better if'.

Feedback

Mark out of 60 - We obtained a mark of 37-54 from our peers with an average of, 44. Overall this means that we are obtaining a Level 3 Band Rough Cut for our opening scene, and that some groups liked our rough curt idea more than others, which was to be expected, as not everyone likes the same things. To achieve the next band, we would need for marks more.

What Went Well? - The feedback we received from this part was mixed it included, 'Good use of camera angles', 'editing techniques', 'low key lighting', 'sounds and effects', 'characters chosen', 'conventions' and 'narrative'. These are all points that were said that our group done well in our rough cut. Some groups also stated that  the narrative twist at the end of our scene went well in our rough cut, which was very positive for us.

Even Better If? 'Clearer narrative', 'credits too small',  'some shots made lighter', 'louder soundtrack', 'antagonists face was lighter at the end'. This feedback was very important as it shows us that for our final copy of the opening sequence we now know what parts of our rough cut we need to improve on to get a better grade, most of these issues were mistakes and were easily improved.

Group storyboard- Miss Miller

The purpose of creating a group storyboard is we can collaborate all the ideas of ourselves and combine certain elements of them together to create one final improved narrative, the final narrative has all the best ideas for our narrative on one storyboard, this is so the opening scene will be the best it possibly can be.

 

We created our group storyboard by looking at each others storyboards and deciding which elements were better or stood out from the others to put in to the final ones. So we swapped the storyboards around so we each got a chance to see the ideas from each one and include the ideas we liked best in the final narrative.

Elements

Harry Hyett

Panning Shot- Harry had the idea of including a panning shot at the start of the opening scene, as he said it gives the audience a better understanding of the location that the scene is set. And that it helps to build suspense.

Handheld Camera Angle - Harry had an idea of a point of view, handheld combination to show what the character was seeing, this was to create a connection with the audience as they were looking through the eyes of the character. He took this inspiration from The Uninvited in the scene when the character walks into the room at the start of the scene in this particular camera angle.

High Angle - This was another camera angle that was taken from Harry's individual storyboard, this camera angle was to be used on both of the characters to show vulnerability of the character via the shift of power as well. Again he took this camera angle from The Uninvited where the character is running through the corridor and this camera angle is used to show her vulnerability.

Luke Durrance

Hidden Identity- We felt that the idea of hidden identity should be used so we took this from my storyboard. This is because it is conventional to the thriller genre and will add to the element of mystery. The hidden identity can be achieved by both characters. If the girl is wearing dark make up over her face it will not be clear and the audience will not be able to see completely what the character looks like. And again the same for the male character if he is wearing some form of clothing that covers a section of his face it will make the audience feel as if the character is the killer although he is not. Although they are not fully hidden they will not be clear to the audience making them feel nervous about the situation for the opposing character, this is also conventional to the thriller genre, as it creates suspense.

Weapon - This was taken from My storyboard as we didn't know what weapon we should include in our opening scene. And my idea of how the knife would be used in the scene was a clear and effective idea. This is also conventional to the thriller genre as it is used in a few of the films I researched.

Reaction Shot- This element was taken from my storyboard as we though it was a good idea that we should include this to show the audience the reaction of the character. This will make it easy for the audience to engage in the scene and become more relate able with the characters via the conversation between the two.

Evaluation

I think that our group storyboard is a massive success as we have a clear understanding of our narrative that we will be filming in the near future. We have done this by reincorporating different elements that stood out from each persons individual storyboard and collected them together and combined them into one for a storyboard that we all like and agree on. This means that the filming of the opening scene will be simple as everyone knows the narrative and no one needs to be explained the narrative. The opening scene will have the clearest narrative, and this should mean that the audience have a clear understanding of whats going on in the scene, which will help to create suspense.

Filming schedule and risk assessment- Miss Georgiou

1) Filming schedule
It is very important to have a filming schedule. It helps organise the filming and speeds up the process of filming. We used a basic sehedule by planning what day and time we would film, as it only took one session to film our whole opening scene, we used the storyboard as a guide to what shots we would film in what order. The table below is the one that we used for the filming.

2) Risk assesment

It is important to consider all risks before filming, as the health and safety of everyone included in the film-making process is important. Furthermore, identifying all risks and how to avoid them minimises the potential hazards. The below risk assessment will therefore assist us with filming in that we now know how to avoid hazards.

Hazards:

Knife. We will be using a knife in our film as it is the murder weapon. To minimise the risk of getting hurt due to this knife, we will use a fake knife.

Filming near roads. We were careful when filming the outside scenes near the road to not be near cars, as this could cause an accident.

When climbing stairs in the dark, make sure we are bing safe, so try to use a light to help us.

The table below shows the risk assment table that we made and used when filming.