'Blanc' - AS Media Thriller

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 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

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 

Risk Assessment

Marketing our Thriller

Marketing a film is very important to improve its chances of success. For example if a very good film was produced yet it was not advertised then no-one who would have liked to see it would hear about it. We have decided upon two means of marketing our film.

One method is to create a fan page on the very popular social networking website 'Facebook' which means that many people can hear about the film and become a fan of it. We can then update them about the film and they can share the page with friends which widens its fan base. We have gained 21 fans quite quickly which shows how quickly the word can spread about our film and this means that we can keep the fan's updated about how the thriller is progressing. Here is a screenshot of the fan page:

We also decided to create a poster for the film which is currently in creation. A poster is a very good means of advertisement for the film because they can be cheaply produced in large batches and dispatched around areas that meet the target audience. For example if a film was aimed at teenagers then it could be advertised in youth clubs or school billboards. A poster also gets people interested in the film because it reveals a little bit but not everything about the film so the viewer wants to see more.

Thomas Steer

Selecting a Day To Film

Selecting an appropriate time and date for filming our thriller is essential to ensure that we can create a film in the time given and so that all scenes can be shot as needed. There are many variables that affect when we can and cannot film which include the weather, other commitments (work or previously organised events) and if we can physically get to the location on that specific day. I work on Saturday's so immediately this has become a non-viable day and although all four of the sixth form students could film during school hours/free periods, one of the main acting roles is being played by a girl who attends a primary school so any scene's involving her will not be able to be filmed during school hours. Because of this, it will probably not be possible to film on any weekday because it still gets dark at about half 6 which means that it would not enable us enough time in the light of day to fully film all of the scene's.


It is important that we try out best to film all of the scene's on the same day or during the same weather to ensure continuity during our film. For example if we filmed some during daytime and then suddenly it turns into a night time, windy and rainy setting then it would confuse the audience.
As a group, we have decided to film on Sunday 27th March because it is a date when all four of us media students and the young actress will be available to film. We have decided to start filming from midday to ensure that we will be able to capture every scene that we need during the same day and to a high standard. This date will enable us time to re film any scenes if there is any trouble when it comes to editing the thriller. Despite this, filming will be subject to weather on the day and if  there is adverse weather condition's then we will have to immediately organise a rescheduled filming day.


Thomas Steer

Final Costume Design - Villain

We have decided on a final costume for our villain. As a group we sat down and discussed which costume would be best for a villain in order to create a scary and suspenseful film. The plain white costume is good because it hides the identity of the person chasing and makes the audience ask questions about their motive and who they are. As their identity is hidden, it furthers away from a normal human because emotion of the character is not revealed. We are going to splat some fake blood onto the costume to improve the prop.

We are going to purchase the costume from amazon.co.uk because it is a trusted website and the props have good reviews from previous customers. This ensures that we will receive the costume in time for filming our thriller. Overall, this costume will work well in our film because it will make the audience ask questions about the film early and the viewers will feel scared for the small girls well being.

Thomas Steer

Adapted Idea

We have changed our original idea of a male being chased by another male. This is because this would not have created the impression we wanted and we feared that it would look like two friends chasing each other around rather than being able to believe the film and what is going on. We have chosen to include a young girl in a white dress being chased by a large male. We think that this would improve the films appeal because the audience feel that a young girl is vulnerable and scary if she is holding a small teddy.

We were going to film in a forest in Kelvedon hatch originally but when we went there to investigate and assess the quality for filming, we decided that it would be better to film in a forest in Shenfield for various reasons explained in the image below.

Thomas Steer

Focus Group - Thriller

Possible Audio - Thriller

It is important that we choose the right audio for our thriller to enhance the appeal of our film. Without a good use of sound's, the film will not be as believable or scene's will not have as big impact on the audience's emotions. We have found many un-copyrighted sounds that we could use for our thriller that are listed below (Click on the title of each to hear them):


Thunder and Rain - This sound will be effective because it helps create a scene where the weather is bad. This is symbolic in thrillers and may tell the audience that something is about to happen. Thunder helps create a sense of danger in the scene.

Ticking Clock - This sound would be used when everything is totally silent to add a sense of suspense and reality. It is quite a fast paced ticking noise which is good in a thriller.

Birds Tweeting - This ambient sound was be used to create a realistic scene of a forest. It is also good to symbolise a relaxed place which will make the change between this and a chase scene more dramatic.

Horror Sting - Although we cannot use this as audio, this is the sort of sounds we want when using sting's to make the audience jump.

Police Radio - This radio will be played once the title has been shown at the end of the opening to show that there has been a crime scene. It sounds good and will improve the effectiveness of the opening.


Thomas Steer

Possible Locations - Thriller

Now that we have an idea what type of locations that we may use in our thriller we have decided to investigate possible locations. 


We have visited possible forest's and liked the look of this one below due to an area of flat surface. This will mean that it is easier to use a dolly on the camera if we want to follow the action.

We also like this theme park at the seaside because it would be different and at night time could create quite a scary atmosphere.













Thomas Steer

Questionnaire Feedback - Demographic: Older Audience

We decided to also hand out our questionnaire to an older audience to gain a wider and balanced collection of opinions. This will allow us to create a thriller which will appeal to a larger audience. This is important in a real thriller because maximum revenue from the film can only be achieved if it appeals to a large demographic.
We found that the answers received from the two types of people were different while some remained similar. By the term 'Older Audience', we used teachers and parents due to their availability and readiness to help us obtain answers.

In the first question, in contrast to the answers from the younger audience, only 4 said 'horror' with 4 saying 'conspiracy' and 2 said 'drama'. This shows that in general, older audiences seem to expect less horror in thriller's. As a result of this, the answers to question 2 were totally varied with the answers, blue, green, black and red being the slight favourite with 3.
Most participants still said that the film should be shot at night. This is probably because a night-time setting helps build suspense in a scene which is also required in both conspiracy and drama, not just horror.

Among the locations suggested by the older audience in question 5 were streets, factories, and forest's.The idea of street's is a good idea because it allows the audience to relate to the film, although it might be hard to make this scary as every thing might seem a bit too normal. Almost all of the participants still said that they would expect a thriller to be rated as a '15'. This give's us quite a clear interpretation of the expected rating of our thriller and will try and produce our thriller accordingly.

For question 8 there were a variety of answers, e.g a good storyline. Most answers we can incorporate into our thriller but were quite obvious anyway. We also found that most people thought that suspense played a vital role in a thriller. This is because it keeps the audience involved witht the film.

Thomas Steer

Questionnaire Feedback - Demographic: Young Audience

After creating a questionnaire, we handed it out to a selection of 10 friends that said they would willingly complete the questionnaire. We did this so that we could gain an insight into what makes a good thriller.
Most people that we gave our questionnaire to said that they liked horror thrillers the most (with 'action' and 'crime' the second favourite). We found that most people associate dark colours with a thriller film and expect to see rapid chase scenes and points in the film that excite the audience.
Out of the people who chose horror thriller, all said that they would expect mainly night scenes and some of the locations suggested were a forest or a run down mansion. These are both locations that we have previously thought about and therefore backs up our opinion that these would be a good place to film.


7/10 participants said that they would expect a thriller to be rated 15, with one saying 12 and two saying 18. This has helped us gain an insight into the general ratings of a thriller, although a judgement can only fully be made once the film has actually been produced because we cannot dictate how scary the scenes are going to be until they have been edited. It is important that we get the rating right because it could upset and distress younger people if rated incorrectly.
A selection of answers for question 7 asking if the opening scenes of a thriller is important are; "It set's the tone" and "Makes viewers ask quesiton's". Both of these points are very valid and we aim to achieve both of these as some of our main goals in the clip. Also, everyone said suspense is important in a thriller because it keeps people wanting to watch the film. It is imperitive that we also achieve this because if people get bored within the first few minutes they will not want to watch the whole film.

Thomas Steer

Questionnaire

We decided to create a questionnaire to hand out to people that could be used to gain an insight into what the audience perceive an effective thriller to be. By creating this questionnaire it means that we can create a good thriller with certain elements that the audience will definitely like and expect.
Below is a copy of our questionnaire:

Tom Smith, Alex Cirino, Thomas Steer & James Kinsella-Brown

Character Influence's

By looking at other characters within the genre of a horror thriller we can gain an insight into what characters can be used in order to create an effective thriller opening sequence. For example we can look at certain character's clothing, movement, make-up and dialogue in order to see what things would improve the mise on scene of our thriller. 


Michael Myer's
We have decided to look at the character 'Michael Myers' in the film 'Halloween'.
In the film, the identity of the character behind the mask is never revealed due to the fact that he is only ever seen while wearing this white mask. Doing this creates a sense of mystery for the audience and as you cannot see the character, this makes you feel scared for people trying to get away from him. This mask is also very plain which can be seen to give the character no emotions which is very different from other thrillers where an angry face is usually used.


To further hide the villain's identity, dialogue from this character is never used which builds even greater tension. Because the audience never hear Michael Myers talk, his personality is hidden which makes viewers ask questions about who he is and his motives. In the opening sequence of a thriller the aim is to get people asking questions so hiding the identity of the villain is an effective way of doing this. The choice of clothing for the character is a full body boiler suit. As described above, this further hides his identity and furthers him away from an average man.


To help create a scary tone and a constant sense of danger, the character is usually seen wielding a knife which displays his aim; to kill. The knife is large and always held in his strongest hand which further shows his readiness to murder his victims. The prop is also covered in blood from previous murder's which makes the audience feel fearful. Michael Myers is seen creeping around with this weapon sneakily. His silent approach with this knife shows how he approaches his victim's and this makes the audience see how vulnerable other characters in the film are while he is creeping up on them. This suspense that is created is a good characteristic for a successful thriller.


Overall, this characters identity is totally hidden from the audience which makes them feel fearful of Michael Myers. Through the use of effective mise en scene, he can be seen as a very good example of a character in a thriller that helps create a suspenseful plot. After analysing this character it is clear that in order to produce a good film we will need to make sure that our villain is not exposed too much and that if they are not wearing thing's that cover them up (e.g mask) then we should be careful about choosing camera shots that do not reveal their full identity in order to keep the audience asking questions about the characters appearance and their motives.


Freddie Krueger
The character 'Freddie Krueger' is the primary antagonist in the film 'Nightmare on Elm Street'.

Freddie is a disfigured monster type man, who stalks victims in their dreams. In those dreams, he uses a glove equipped with razor sharp blades to kill his victims, which leads to their death in the real world. By having those sharp blades, it makes the audience feel like he is going to be dangerous with them, as usually things that can harm are associated with bad people, and these bad people are known to do bad things to others.

In the film, the character where's typical male clothing of the time period it was set in. This consisted of  a red and green striped jumper, a leather look hat, with a long leather jacket on top. This allows the audience to relate to the character and almost feel sympathetic as they know he used to be normal person as they know the story behind the film. This challenges the expectations of the viewer as they may expect a villain to be wearing dark clothing or even a boiler suite or something similar, like 'Michael Myers' in the film 'Halloween'.

Freddie has a deformed face due to being 'undead', the audience will gain a sense of fear when they see him, as they know that he is a powerful character, due to the fact that he should be dead, but he isn't. The viewers will be able to resemble the difference between the villain and the victim, as the character doesn't change his outfit throughout the film, this enables the audience to know when something bad is going to happen. This creates a sense of tension throughout the film, and suspense is a major theme in the codes and conventions of a thriller. The audiences expectation of a thriller generally consists of scenes which contain suspense.

In conclusion, Freddie Krueger's character successfully portrays the typical villain, due to his body features such as scars, his symbolic clothing and his choice of weaponry. When we create our character for our thriller, we need to take into consideration the expectations of the audience. It would be ideal to design a character based on our choice of theme throughout the film.

Thomas Steer & James Kinsella-Brown

Developed Ideas

Now that we have produced a list of initial idea's we have developed the idea's that we think would create the most effective thriller. Some of the things that were initially suggested have not been possible to do once we started to plan our film in detail. For example we decided that we could not use a scene where it was dark in a forest and then torches would flash across because it would be too dangerous to film in a forest at night due to hidden roots and therefore risk of injury.
Another reason why initial ideas may have changes is because they would no longer fit into our storyline. For example we have had to adapt plots because we could not use locations that we first thought that we could. We tried to contact the owner of a run down hospital but he did not want us to enter the building and film our thriller so we have had to change our plot accordingly.

Thomas Steer

Preliminary Task - Marking other student's work

We decided to mark another group's preliminary task so that we could avoid error's that others may have made as well as our own. It will also help them improve their work.

The clip starts with a title, which takes up the whole screen and it displays the names of the group. This does not look very professional because it is only black and white and a standard font which gives the impression that not much effort has been put into the movie. This then fades into the clip which is nice and shows a characters walking down a corridor. A smooth pan is used to follow the character to the door and then match on action is successfully used as the door opens.

As the character walks inside the room, a jump cut is used which makes him jump across the room a little bit. If this happened in a real film then it would have a negative effect on the quality of the film and becomes unbelievable. The character also possesses a cheeky grin as he walks in, which again if used in a real film it would be unacceptable and may ruin the audiences perception of the film. The pan used here is worse than the first one because the pace is not consistent throughout.

As the characters talk, very quick over the shoulder shot's are used (which are at a good angle as all the attention is on the dialogue and not being distracted by objects in the background). The character who then exits the room has a very visible and distracting jump cut as he stands which would ruin a film. Overall, the preliminary would not be believable if it was a real film but some good shots and transitions are used. After analysing their preliminary they can improve their final work and make sure that no mistakes are made in their thriller.

Thomas Steer

Preliminary Task - Video

This is our Preliminary video which we filmed over the course of a day. We used this task to practice camera shots, editing, mise en scene and sound. From this task we have learnt a lot about the four key topics so that when it comes to filming our thriller we can improve dramatically.

Thomas Steer, Alex Cirino, Tom Smith & James Kinsella-Brown