In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions(repeated pattern over time) of real media products?
The brief of the thriller production which me and my group had to successfully meet was to devise, prepare, shoot and edit the opening two minutes of a new thriller including the titles. Our media product is a supernatural Thriller Horror which is a sub genre of the thriller. The generic conventions of the thriller may include an intricacy of plot, a complex unravelling narrative, a focus on fear, apprehension and suspense, resulting in significant rising tension and also red herrings! Our product follows the typical conventions of the other real media products, but with a few challenging twists. We tried to follow the fantasy Pans Labyrinth style. It tends to be subtle (For example <
On one hand our product could be count as a traditional Thriller as it follows some of the obvious Thriller convention such as in theme our protagonist is a female victim ( just like the other horror film Scream)who is in a vulnerable unknown situation and space with no one else around and she is in a large, fancy old library. And there is an unknown threatening creature hiding behind the peace and beauty. And as a thriller we have sort of catch a big human phobias as all of this thing happens in the dream which is like the most vulnerable time period as a human as we are alone in our own dream world and no one else will be able to help. And even worse is that this nightmare seems to come into your real life. And this suggests that it may happen to you as well when you close your eyes and sleep. Otherwise, there is no escape. Also, we used harp orchestral music as the background music with discordant note added on to emphasize the tensity of the audience. This again indicates that evil is creeping in behind the peace and beauty. As a thriller we also have a lot of element and scene which holds a lot of connotations and this matches the traditional stereotype of the traditional thriller as well—things will be there for a meaning. For example, the first scene of our sequence is a a simple wide, long shot of the protagonist walking alone in the long corridor this draws the viewer’s attention to the mise-en-scene and the characters it also create a sense of stasis in shots and a sense of enigma within the audience. And at the same time leave the time for the audience to pick up the connotation hide behind the mise-en scene and have their own thought and view of what’s going on. For example the long corridor may imply endless nightmare, the shadow of the window bars created by the strong lighting from outside indicates there is no escape. And the candles placed on both side of the corridor with the fire coming from the candle joggling imply the vulnerable and unstable fate of the protagonist.
On the other hand our thriller product did challenge the traditional thriller. For example for our actress we didn’t choose a western California blond beautiful innocent looking girl which has been used again and again in other thriller films (for example” The last girl the last blond” )and could be counted as a convention of a traditional thriller film. Instead we chose Gemma who is a mix heritage girl with those amazing crazy fuzzy hair. Also, for our location we didn’t choose somewhere like a shopping centre, amusement park like <
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
We used female as the protagonist and the victim as they are weaker and seems to be more vulnerable .On one hand, as the costume is white and clean which suggest virginity and purity and shows femininity and this suit the social and the audience expectation of the image of a woman. It’s also not a typical portrayal as the protagonist doesn’t have the strong figure as she is not tall and seems very skinny and looks vulnerable, childlike and seems too weak to handle the threat and can easily generate sympathy which is part of femininity as well. This also points how woman has been look on as a representative of weakness. Also, mix heritage actress as a protagonist seldom appears in the traditional thriller so we goes against it as a twist. Instead of using a beautiful skinny western blond girl which has been used a lot for all kind of thriller. We used a mix race girl who has crazy looking hair and beautiful brown skin from the appearance of the girl we can say that she represents a particular group of people and states another forgotten aspect of the society. In addition, looking at her costume again it is obviously a traditional western sleeping gown in an Victorian period style and as the protagonist who is wearing this gown is clearly not a traditional western girl. And it looks a bit strange to the audience as according to the audience’s expectation a mix race black woman are rarely rich. And this challenges the audience expectation and could show the contrast and the diversity of how the general public think of different races. This also represents the nowadays more advance society as well. As there are communication between different cultures and the equality ideology. And all the elements above will gives people a fresh and new feeling and therefore our product will be more conspicuous and attractive, on the same time generate awareness from the society about other groups of people. And most importantly as this is different from the other thriller it will actually stay in people’s mind. So we can say that our media product represent a mix race female who are considered to be weak and vulnerable. And most importantly points out the under-represented groups in mass media. As we put the protagonist in a fancy and luxury looking setting and costume which doesn’t seems suit her and challenge against the bias ideology of the audience.
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
We could categorize our product as a feature low budget independent film. The reason for that is first in terms of finance obviously as a high school student we have a very tight limited budget so it is nearly impossible for us to carry out a high technology, and the most in advanced product like the Hollywood production. And we only have the props as below
1*SONY PD170 MINI DV CAM
1*FLUID HEAD TRIPOD( INCLUDING HORSESHOE)
1*SENNHEISER (SHOTGUN) DIRECTIONAL MICROPHONE
2*AA BATTERIES
1*SUSPENSION MOUNT/UNIT(CAMERA STAND)
1*BOOMPOLE+XLR AUDIO LEAD
1*RYCOTE SOFTIE( MICROPHONE WINDSHIELD&SHOCKMOUNT SYSTEM)
2*MINI DV CAM TAPE STOCK
2*REDHEAD VIDEO LIGHTS+TRIPOD
Also, as a student we have limited time as we have to learn other subject as well and we only have one day to shoot and this results in an limitation of possible location and the best way is shooting inside the school campus which will save us a lot of time in terms of transportation and we could actually spend more time on shooting. Also, as we have a very tight limited budget we couldn’t possibly use a star or professional actor so we can only choose our actor within the student or staff in the school. Although there are so many limitation as an A-level media student with the help from the teacher and the creative ideas and ability we have I believe we could make a good product. As our thriller is a low budget independent film so it is very hard for us to ask Warner brother to distribute our film as those big production Hollywood films. So we may first try to find some UK distribution companies such as Film Four or UK film council. And we could create interest to them by introducing our unique selling point which is like the theme, the feature of our film. And how have we challenge the traditional convention of thriller .Also, it is a student production. After that if we could successfully attract them we may get fund from them and let them help our film to gain more awareness by putting it on screen and introduce it to the public by advertising and marketing. Although it is done nationally we could expand to the other country later. We may also attend some independent film festivals or join the independent film organisation to gain the help form them and boost the awareness of our film. For example, Raindance an organisation which dedicated to fostering and promoting independent film in the UK and around the world. It based in the heart of London, Raindance combines Raindance Film Festival, the prestigious British Independent Film Awards.and Raindance.tv. And they launch DVD for the outstanding film in the festival for example <
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
According to British Board of Film Classification we would like to set our film as 12A which means Suitable for 12 years and over. No-one younger than 12 may see a ‘12A’ film in a cinema unless accompanied by an adult. No-one younger than 12 may rent or buy a ‘12’ rated video or DVD. Responsibility for allowing under-12s to view lies with the accompanying or supervising adult. As some part of the film will be a bit disturbing mentally for audience under 12. We did a bit research with other group and out of five people 4 people think it is a bit disturbing so that’s why we set this age limit. I believe that setting the age limit to 12 wouldn’t have a great impact on the selling of our film. As parents wouldn’t normally want their children below 12 goes to the cinema by themselves any way they usually goes with their parents, brother or sisters. So there shouldn’t be a big problem for not letting people under 12 to watch the movie alone. On the other hand our target audience is the teenager around 12 to 26. As a low budget film we might try to target different type of audience such as media student or teacher who are interested in consulting and researching different work done by student. Also, as this is a thriller with very strong artistic feeling so we might try to attract people who are interesting in art and visual effect and cares more about the techniques, lighting more than the scenario. And maybe the young thriller fan as well.
5) How did you attract / address your audience?
To attract audience we may have to use some marketing techniques. For standard marketing we may try to introduce some T-shirt with the image of our poster, slogan or tagline etc. We may launch it in a very low price and even give it to people free to attract customer to wear it and hopefully it will just become a “live advert” and once people seeing it on the street again and again they will start to be interested in it. On the same way we could even launch some low cost stationery with printed poster on them. Also by viral marketing we could open a character based website providing people a space to communicate about the film. And even before the film end we could raise different endings from the audience and let them vote for the best one and we will provide another ending. In addition there will possibly have an award for the “winner”. With this kind of activity the audience will have a feeling of being one of us as the producer and this will definitely attract attention. We could also design some little games based on the scenario of the film we could also introduce the game on facebook and blogs to spread it across so that it will gain awareness of the people from the net. If that did success the advertisement impact will be huge.
Also, from our previous study of the thriller genre we were aware that to create an effective opening sequence there must be substantial enigmas. So to create suspense in narrative, there should be unanswered questions which will compel the audience to anticipate action with a resolution and encourage them to continue watching the rest of the film.So the ending of our sequence is like a cliff hanger as audience may want to find out what will happen to the girl. Also, why the girl suddenly moves outside on the grass and what on earth is the black tar. And who is the person playing the harp. And all of those on the other hand leaves areas in which the film could develop. We also use the sound to attract the audience such as the beautiful harp music and also the background sound we add on which just exposes the evil that hides behind normality and beauty and peace. Also, the beautiful and nearly artistic settings and lighting. Expect those the actress we used who was a beautiful vulnerable mix race girl which is a challenge to the traditional stereotype and make us different. And all those elements above help to attract the audience.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Through the process of constructing this product we learnt a lot about the technologies. For hard ware which involves recording the moving image. We learned about camera for example lens, shutter speed, focus etc. For lighting we learned three points lighting which refers to Key light where the main source of light on the subject, usually coming from around 45 degree above and either to the left or the right of the camera. Fill light which is a soft light, which as it name suggests, fills in the shadows, to avoid sharp areas of contrast caused by the main light. And Backlight which comes from, obviously, behind the subject, and makes it stand out against the background. Obviously we did use Back lighting behind the self to make the shadow of the book shelf and makes it stands out. And we didn’t use Filllight as we want the strong contrast between the bright and dark side. And we also learnt how to create different lighting which gives what kind of atmosphere and effect. As we were shooting in the bed room and we want to have an early morning feeling and to create that kind of feeling all we need is a piece of blue gel and cover the red head with it. With that little piece of thing it changes the whole feeling. We also learned three point lighting. And how to record the music which is the harp music we have to use the sennheiser (shotgun) directional microphone and point to the point where and sound comes from to record it and get the best effect. We also learnt different type of shoots for example do a focus pull which we did experiment it in the shooting in the bed room at the end. Also, for soft ware which mainly involves editing the sequence. We learnt a lot of techniques from that as well. For example in using final cut pro how to edit the background music and put background sound on top of it to make the overall background more intense and realistic and gives the audience more convulsion. We also learned different techniques when editing such as special transcription to make it more fluent between scene and scene. And also special effect which is the Adobe after effects to make the cool effect of the transition from the library to the outside grass when the book wipe across the screen. And we also learnt about Photoshop. And all those techniques made me more confident when facing the new technology facility.
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
As in the preliminary task all we were required to do is a continuity exercise involving filming and editing involving two characters in a conversation within an interior set. One character opens a door, crosses a room establishes themselves opposite another character and a few lines of dialogue are exchanged. At that time I first get introduced to editing and the software Final cut pro also shooting with professional digital camera with tripod. And when shooting the preliminary task I was still quite verdancy to those new technologies and a bit unconfident. As time moved on and we were required to shoot our own sequence. And we have to plan everything by ourselves from choosing the actor to storyboard, location background music etc. At the start to me it was a huge challenge but as we get on with it and work as a team I found that the process of planning for every step was actually quite interesting. At the first meeting we discussed together and each of us gave out our own ideas. And we produced a PowerPoint presentation to present our idea to the rest of the class and listened to their advice. As we have our initial idea established. We started to do researches we found out that Pans Labyrinth fantasy style may suit our sequence and we looked at the lighting used in it. When we started to make story board we first hand drawn it than we carried the camera to the location at took down a lot of pictures to try with different shooting angles and lighting. It is quite useful as it helps as to plan exactly what to do when shooting. After all those planning the shooting day finally comes I played a role of the Editor, and Continuity person, Camera person, there were some unexpected issue due to insufficient planning for example we didn’t brought an old rug to prevent the paint damaging the floor and we didn’t work out how thick should we make the black tar to make it effective etc. So if I could go back and do it again I will try to plan to every possible detail and do experiment before hand to make sure the shooting goes fluently.
Looking back at my preliminary task to the full product I have learnt and improved my skill level a lot during this time such as knowing more about editing such as adding on background music and ambient sound, putting on credit, how to make the cut between scene and scene more fluent and be confident in it. And the special effect. Also, I learned more about the shot angle, lighting to create interesting shadow which indicates different meanings. Etc And most importantly I understand now how important is the preparation before the shot and I have been amazed that it should be in such detailed.
