'Blanc' - AS Media Thriller

Audience Feedback

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

Evaluation Activity 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation Activity 5 - How to attract/address your audience

Evaluation Activity 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

                                                 

 

 Name: Chloe Brown

 Age: 16

 Likes:

 Music: My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy

 Films: Twilight, One missed Call and Inception.

 TV Programmes: Misfits, Skins, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

 Social Networks: Twitter, Myspace, Tumblr and Bebo.

Dislikes:

Music: Rap Artists, Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus.

Films: High School Musical and Snakes on a Plane.

TV Programmes: Eastenders, Hollyoaks and Harry Hill.

Social Networks: Facebook and Last.FM

Bio: Currently studies at Wolverhampton school of Performing Arts, where she boards for most of the school year. She enjoys going out on a Friday night with her friends. Her boyfriends name is Mortimer and they are attending the same school, although he is 22. Chloe and her friends say that their style is 'grunge', which is who this video may be aimed towards more. Chloe has one sister and two brothers which she is very close too, however being at a boarding school she wishes she could see them more. Too earn extra money, Chloe works in a local corner shop. She says that she enjoys her work however would like a little more pay. When she is not busy working she is at the cinema watching the latest blockbuster movie. Her favourite genre of film is thriller, although when she is with her boyfriend she likes to watch a gory horror. Overall, Chloe is a very stereotypical person who would be most likely to watch our thriller.

Name: Gerald Fletcher

Age: 18
Likes:
Music: Chase and Status, Wiz Khalifa and Girls Aloud
Films: Fast and the Furious, Shrek and Harry Potter
TV Programmes: Top Gear, Waterloo Road and Family Guy
Social Networks: Facebook and Twitter

Dislikes:
Music: Justin Beiber and Kylie Minogue
Films: Chronicles of Narnia, Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Carribean
TV Programmes:  Coronation Street and American Dad
Social Networks: MySpace and Bebo





Bio: Currently training to be a chef at Leith's Cookery School London, where he is doing his final year of intermediate level cooking course. He enjoys spending time with his friends when he has time out of his studies and his favourite hobby is hockey. Gerald's life long ambition was to become a professional hockey player, however he knew that cooking was his forte. Gerald's relationship status is single, however wants to get a girlfriend in the near future. Gerald has one sister called Mandy who he does not see very often as she now lives in Greenland, with her husband Mark. Gerald hopes to start a part time job in a Bar/Restaurant as a waiter to earn money for his advanced cooking training fees. Gerald enjoys watching a thriller movie, however his favourite genre of film is Comedy. Gerald is a likely viewer of our thriller because he enjoys watching thrillers and is the right age range for the film.

James Kinsella-Brown

Evaluation Activity 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?





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

We decided to compare our villain to Michael Myers. This is a character from a successful series of films called 'Halloween' where he stalks and murders various innocent people. Some of his attributes have been reflected in the character that we have created and used in our film opening. Despite this there are various differences to suit our thriller as I will explain below:

Similarities

-The main similarity is the plain white mask that reveals nothing about the characters emotions and creates the idea that during events such as murder, their emotions are not effected.

-They both have a weapon that can be commonly picked up from an everyday environment.
-The clothing used in both characters is dark which shows a mysterious side to the character. If the person was shown in coloured clothing then it would give them a sense of identity and emotion. Showing our character in dark clothing, like Michael Myers makes him seem emotionless and more to fear.
-The role of both characters is very similar which is to chase victims.
-The motives of Michael Myers are never fully revealed which makes it more scary for the audience as they feel like he is out of control. Although the motives of our antagonist may be revealed slowly throughout the film, it is important to keep them unknown for a while to create a sense of mystery towards the audience.
-Both villains are played by male characters. This is due to the fact that a male character is more dominant and the audience will fear a larger genuine fear from being chased by a man.

Differences
-Michael Myers is seen walking very slowly during scenes yet always keeps up with the victim whilst the villain in our thriller seems to have a more realistic approach to chasing the victim. For example our villain is not seen to have any extreme abilities and has to run to keep up with the vulnerable character.
-Michael Myers wears a boiler suit which seems like hes dressed for the occassion whereas our character, although a similar style, is seen wearing clothes that a human wears. This helps make our character look like he has normal human attributes which will make the audience question what his motives are.
-Although both have weapon's that can easily be picked up, our character weilds a crowbar rather than a knife. This is larger and recieves more attention from the audience.

Thomas Steer

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

Title of our film: We found that coming up with a name for our thriller was a lot harder than we expected. As a group we brainstormed lots of different thriller names but we found that none of them really fitted with the storyline of our thriller. We moved on to deciding what props and costumes were going to be used and as we decided on the antagonist wearing a white mask we decided to call our thriller "Blanc" which means white in French. We thought that the name "Blanc" fitted our thriller well because most people associate thrillers with dark colours however in our case we chose white (Blanc) which is known as a pure and innocent colour. 

Setting/Location: Our opening to our thriller has two locations which are both in Shenfield woods. It starts by a lake where our our character is sitting looking innocent and vulnerable which straight away gives the audience the impression that something bad is going to happen. To make our character look vulnerable we used a range of shots down by the river such as a over the shoulder shot of him playing with a rock. As he is playing with a rock it makes him look nervous. The second location was a forest where the chase scene took place. Both the antagonist and protagonist are running through the forest. Rapid editing was used to make the chase look realistic and scary. 

Costume and Props: When we had to decide on the props and costumes we tried to be as original as possible. We wanted to avoid knives and other similar weapons as they are overused. When picking costumes we wanted the antagonists appearance not to be revealed to the audience so we decided to use a mask. The mask which we chose was a really simple white mask which looked effective. To make the mask stand out our villain wore a black outfit. When the outfit had been put together we felt it looked very creepy. The weapon that we decided on was a crowbar as it matched the antagonists appearance. As for our innocent character we picked a simple black outfit which did not reveal to much about his personality.   

Camera work and Editing: Before we went out filming we planned most of the shots so that when we arrived at the location we could get straight into it. As a group we decided that we needed to get as many different shots as possible so that when it came to editing we had a wide variety of shots to choose from. We had no problems editing the thriller as we used our own editing software which we were familiar with, this meant that the editing process could be completed quickly and professionally.

Title and Font style: Choosing a font style which could be used in the introduction to our thriller was fairly simple as we used the same font as the title. This font fitted perfectly with the mood and was a very unique styled font. The way in which the opening titles appear on the screen was a long process to edit as masking out the tree took a long time. The titles slide out from behind a tree and then slide back behind it before the end of the clip. As a group we thought that the text sliding out from behind the tree was a unique and suitable method to use.

Story and how the opening sets it up: The opening shots make the thriller seem calm however the soundtrack which is being played is creepy which straight away makes the audience think that something bad is going to happen. The antagonist follows the victim in the opening few scenes without the victim realising, this creates an enigma for the audience.

Genre and how the opening suggests this: As the genre of our film is a thriller, we wanted to get the genre across to the audience as quick as possible by the way in which we filmed it, the costume and props which were used and the soundtrack which creates suspense and is very creepy. During the chase scene the music speeds up and so does the speed of editing to creating tension which also helps the audience recognise that they are watching a thriller.  

How characters are introduced: The characters were introduced in ways which fitted with the filming of the thriller. For instance our victim is introduced at the start of the thriller and the way in which he is acting sets the mood. The antagonist appears at different times throughout the opening of the thriller this makes it seem like the villain has supernatural powers which gives him an advantage over the victim.

By Alex Cirino

The Editing Process

BBFC Rating For Our Film

After viewing our thriller and receiving feedback from our YouTube audience we decided to evaluate it and choose a suitable film rating. We looked at the BBFC rating system and decided as a group that it should be a '15'. We chose our thriller to be a '15' because it contains violence and strong language however the scenes are not explicit enough to make it an '18'.

As a group we watched a few other thrillers which helped us to pick a film rating. The thrillers we watched were The Crazies '15', The Strangers '15', Taken '18'. We compared our film idea to the listed thrillers and realised it was not as violent as Taken but was just as creepy as The Strangers and The Crazies. 

Change of Costume

After a having a group meeting about the first video, we noticed several things that we could change. One of the main problems we had with the film was that of the costume. We felt it wasn't believable to have an outfit like that as it looked to far fetched and the quality of the outfit was exposed during filming. James told us about a coat he had which we could use, he said he would wear black trousers with his outfit. We decided to keep the mask as we still though this was an effective prop. Below is a picture of James in his new outfit.

Tom Smith

Diary Of Filming Day 2

With a day set for our second day of filming we had high hopes, plans and high expectations. As detailed in our previous blog, we didn't think the quality of the film was as good as we could achieve so we decided to re shoot it.

We had decided on our costume change but kept just about everything the same. This time however Tom Steer didn't come too filming, but the rest of the team was there. The day went much smoother as we had detailed plan of each shot we needed, and how we wanted them done. This had a massive effect on the filming as it was much more productive and slick.

Another improvement on the last time we filmed was our ability to change our shots and discuss what would be best for the film. By each of us having a positive input we managed to get a wide variety of shots that individually, we wouldn't of thought of. Alec's acting was again just what we wanted so that again made the day more productive.

We also managed to film the second bit of our thriller in the bedroom. We got a lift back to James' house and used his room as he had a window looking down at his garden. We got the second half shot within an hour, bringing the total days filming time to 5 hours. By taking more time, we managed not too rush our filming and got our thriller filmed effectively. It then took Alex 2 days to edit the initial clip and it was then totally finished by Saturday.

Here are some photo's taken throughout the course of the day.

Tom Smith

Diary Of Filming Day 1

We attempted to begin our thriller's filming on 1st April. The weather for this day of filming was good as it hadn't rained, and it wasn't too cold, so our filming skills weren't affected. However this first day did not go as planned to start with. James had to be kept behind by a teacher, so we had to postpone filming for a little bit, whilst waiting for James to come. When we began to start filming, we discovered that the batteries we had to chosen to use, didn't work properly with our camera. We didn't know why, but we found out that the batteries were being used up in about 10 minutes, so we had to go find some more batteries and buy loads, so we had enough for the whole day. Once filming got under way it went rather well, we got all the shots we had put down in our plan. We didn't have time to film the bedroom scene in the second half, so we only filmed the woodland chase scene.

After we had filmed, Alex edited it and put it on Vimeo for everyone to see the finished product, which we had mixed emotions about. We decided that some of the shots looked really good, but others could have looked better. We then ultimately decided that we would have to film again as several bits of the film could be improved dramatically on. We tried not to be too disappointed with the outcome as we knew it was only half of our thriller, but as a group we had a meeting and decided we must reshoot and several changes must be made.

Tom Smith

Soundtrack Possibilites

For our film, the sound is very important, and will create a very tense atmosphere. We have been looking around and brainstormed some ideas for a soundtrack. By having a soundtrack scored by someone we know, and sitting in on the process, we can get a real ear for what we want to get.


There were two main points we wanted to make with this potential score before we made it. Firstly we were going to look at what type of instruments we wanted to create the music, after discussion, we decided that a guitar would be the best option. We then wanted to determine the pace of the song, so looked at several different options, like whether we wanted it fast or slow.


The Guitar: We wanted to achieve a heavy, distorted sound from the guitar, so we looked round for inspiration. One track we picked out to try and replicate was 'Just' by Radiohead, we only really looked at trying to replicate a similar sound from the opening riff (0.18-0.30). We liked the squeal like noise from the guitar and the heavy distortion over the top. We then looked at another model which could of suited our film perfectly, 'In a House, In a Heartbeat' by John Murphy was used in the film '28 Days Later'. We found this track to be very eerie and create a good atmosphere for the start of our film. The heavy guitars towards the end and the general build of pace during the whole song really impressed us. We have decided to try and replicate these two guitar tracks in our score.

We also looked at Radiohead again, but only really wanted to look at one particular bit. At the beginning of 'Fake Plastic Trees' an A chord is played, with an alternating strum patters. We believe this type of chord with an electric guitar and some effects, could make a really intimidating sound after we altered the pitch, level and speed.

The Pace: The pace of the song by John Murphy above has the kind of build up into the main chorus which creates tension, which culminates in a big ending, like in a chase scene. So from looking at this video, ourselves and the artists can determine the speed of our piece.

This idea was only a potential idea, so even if we do compose it, it may very well turn out that it may not be used, if it didn't match the shots we had taken.

Tom Smith

Film Trailers

We will be watching a number of different trailers that are already currently in the market. As we will be creating an opening to a thriller, we will only be watching trailers related to this genre. In this post we will show a few different trailers, and then give a brief description of each one analysing what makes them good for the audience and how they successfully promote their films.


Inception                                                                                                                                                                                              
Throughout this trailer, a number of different words appear on screen to try to explain to the audience what is occurring. Vital information is shown such as the actors name, "LEONARDO DICAPRIO". A number of words appear that tell the audience what to expect, such as "Your Mind" and " Is the scene of the crime". This is very common in trailers as it introduces to the audience what the film will consist of.

The soundtrack begins with a loud, slow beat to create a gradual tension. As the intros appear, the music becomes faster paced, still accompanied by the loud beat, which over the course of the trailer changes. A sting happens as a key line is stated "I will have to steal it!" After which the soundtrack continues to play. Towards the end of the trailer, the soundtrack becomes louder and faster. Three consecutive, loud and slow beats end the trailer, at which point the films title is shown "INCEPTION"


The Strangers
Cinematic's are shown at the beginning of the trailer, displaying a forest with a river flowing through it. Then the house is shown where most of the action will be filmed in the movie. A calm and romantic scene starts the trailer to give the audience a relaxed feeling. A loud crashing noise from outside of the house disturbs the tranquillity, which suggests to the audience the bad happening start from here onwards. Words appear on screen saying "Inspired by true events" which will make the audience believe it really did happen, which always creates more fear. Throughout the trailer, it cuts from clips from the film to the words added in, this is to give a suspenseful feel to the movie. When the first villain is revealed, it is completely silent, with just the sound of soft breathing. Following on from this, a numerous amount of shots of different villains are displayed where one minute they are there and the next nowhere to be seen. This will make the audience ask themselves where have they gone? Again the mayhem calms down for a while, this is then interrupted by an axe coming through the door and nearly killing the male victim. Almost immediately a close-up of the woman victims face is shown, to show the fear this is giving her. The trailer is ended with a long shot of one of the villains, where only her face is seen, with everything else is blacked out, this is closely followed by the ending credits.

Throughout the trailer, different soundtracks are used to emphasise different scenes. To begin, slow soft piano music is played to set a relaxing, romantic feel. This is abruptly disturbed by a loud crashing noise from outside the house. The soundtrack stops and all that can be heard are the voices of the victims and a squeaky swing eerily swing back and forth. Another soundtrack slowly begins to start playing to build suspense. When the first villain is scene the soundtrack stops, and all that can be heard is the gentle breathing of the victim. As the clips start proceeding again, loud beats and different sound effects are used to scare the audience. The soundtrack cuts to that of a record player playing soft music. The scene becomes relaxing again. A large sting is then used to make the audience jump. The record player seems to go out of control and becomes louder and starts to repeat the same thing over and over. Another loud noise is played and the trailer starts to come to an end. The victims and Villain have a quiet conversation and the trailer is ended with an almost ghostly breath.


James Kinsella-Brown

Final Poster Design

Potential Poster

We created a poster for our Facebook page in which we will use to help our demographic recognise our thriller. A poster will allow us to promote our thriller and may lead to further views. In the real industry promoting the thriller is really important as money will be made by doing this.

This is one of the potential posters we wil be using. We decided to put a 5* rating at the top of the poster as we feel that the audience will feel like it is a really must see film. This could boost our viewing count.

It displays three different images of male silhouette figures. The villain is a different colour outline than the other characters and this is too really emphasise his authority over the film. We decided to use a silhouette because it will hide the identities of the figures untill the film is released, this may create tension to our audience and may want them want to find out who the characters really are.

The title is really bold and stands out from all the other parts of the poster. This is to catch the demographics eye and hope that they look out for our film in the future. A choice of faded text in the background was used to enhance the overall effect of the title.


We feel it was important to exclaim to the audience when the thriller will be available to watch because that way they can look out for it in the future. We used blood dripping text to potray some of the horrors that may appear in our film.


James Kinsella-Brown

Editing Software - Sony Vegas

Sony Vegas editing software allows clips to be edited and ordered in a simple way. The timeline enables clips to be viewed before they have even been rendered. The thriller will be put together on this program before it is transferred into Adobe After Effects to add all the extra effects.

The sounds will be done on Vegas as its quite complicated to do on After Effects. We will use a soundtrack throughout the thriller to build up tension and suspense, extra sound effects such as door slams and other sounds associated with horror may also be used.

Before the colour grading is done in After Effects a simple brightness/contrast colour correction will be applied to all the clips just to improve the quality and the overall look of the clips.

The final thriller will be rendered out in 720p at 15fps as that is what the camera films in. This will assure that we get the best quality possible out of the camera and will make our thriller look a lot sharper. The size of the finished thriller will be 1280x720 and will uploaded to both youtube and vimeo.

Alex Cirino

Editing Software - Adobe After Effects

I am going to use Adobe After Effects CS5 when editing our thriller. The software enables me to create ground breaking motion graphics and blockbuster visual effects which will improve the overall look of our thriller. 

I will use After Effects for the colour grading/colour correction as we want a scary vintage style look to the thriller, the colours used will make our thriller stand out from the rest and become more original.

After Effects will also be used for the opening title scene as lots of motion tracking is going to be used on the text so that it stays in the right place. The text is going to be masked and will come out from behind different trees. 

For one of the slow motion close up shots which we are going to use I am going to use a plugin called Twixtor. The plugin enables super smooth slow motion which will make the edit more clean looking. 

Another plugin which we may use is Knoll Light Factory. This plugin is used for fake lighting such as sunsets/moons etc. This may be able to enhance the overall look of our thriller and make it more creepy looking. 

Alex Cirino

Marketing Our Thriller

To help make our film as good as possible we have created several social network pages on sites to help promote our film. By doing this we open ourselves up to a wider audience, and helps create buzz around the film. This twitter page will be giving a daily update on the film's progress, offering a personal character people can approach about the film. Here we will upload pictures, videos and create a diary to help document our film's progress.

This is a screen shot of our page.

Tom Smith

Fonts

The font which we will use to advertise the film and use during the film helps to set the mood of forthcoming events. As our film is a horror thriller called Blanc we needed a simple but effective font to portray our film. Above is a selection of different fonts which match the horror genre. As a group we will decide which font is going to be used for the film and which font is going to be used for the poster.


Alex Cirino

Characters

We have decided upon who will play certain roles within our thriller for various reasons. In the opening sequence, only 3 characters will be involved. We feel that this is important so that the viewers can understand certain characters without being overloaded with too many faces. The actors for each role are explained below:

Alec is a male actor who will act as a vulnerable character being chased. He is appropriate for use in our film because he has acted in many school productions and achieving well in A-level drama. We told him the acting role that he will have to play and he feels that he will be able to carry it out effectively. Having an actor that can successfully play the role of a vulnerable person will enhance the film. His height is smaller than the villain and so can be seen as inferior easily by the audience.

James is going to play the role of the villain in the film. We feel that he will be able to play the role well because he is quite tall and therefore can be clearly seen as the villain in the thriller. He will be wearing the white boiler style suit and the blank, white mask in the chase scene which should add mystery about this character. James also exceeded in drama during lower school years but did not persue it because he wanted a more academic approach to his studies. As he enjoys acting it will help us be able to create an effective chase scene.





 Tom is going to play the role of the boy who wakes up from the nightmare which has turned into reality. He feels that he will be able to effectively look scared in the clip which is important to draw the attention and feelings of the audience in. Although never studying drama, because he is more than willing to act in the scene it helps us improve our thriller.









Thomas Steer 

Storyboard - Thriller