Thriller Evaluation

My Thriller develops and challenges conventions of real media products because it is thrilling. Generally, Thrillers focus on the plot rather than the character and emphasize intensity, but as my sub-genre was a Psychological Thriller, it focused on the characters state of mind just as much as the plot. The suspense was created through a “psycho” playing a deceptive game intending to demolish the victim's mental state of mind. From the start to end of my opening sequence, the viewers remain curious with the help of the attention grabbing opening which maintains the audiences appeal. The idea for the title “Psycle” was a play on the words ‘Psycho’ and ‘Cycle’ which both have major influences on my film. I didn’t give away too much information or I would have been at risk of having a predictable storyline. My sequence raises many questions wanting the audience to find out more, a typical Thriller convention. An example of this technique is used in “Arlington Rd,” the opening scene reveals a frightened 9 year old boy running awkwardly across a suburban road with blood dripping slowly onto his trainers soon revealing, his arm/hand bleeding rather than what was portrayed through the camerawork. Both “Psycle” (my thriller) and “Arglington Rd” raised questions because of the use of opening “close ups”. The camerawork helps the audience understand the situations better. In “The Shining”, the use of close ups demonstrated the characters emotions and iconography, which also took part in my Thriller. We used various shots to represent various things such as POV (to show their point of view), shot reverse shot (to show a connection between cuts), and high angles to show a vulnerable character, plus many more.

The close up of the recorder displaying “Psycle” showed significance (iconography), then we cut to Nicole’s reaction and then back to the recorder which now displays “Play.” The use of closes up and shot reverse shot showed us the object, reaction and then object once again portraying it to be all in her head.
Another very important convention I had to consider was the sound. Thrillers have to use specific sounds to give the audience the mysterious feel, or even making use of silence to build tension. The two kinds of sounds to consider are diegetic (on screen noises e.g dialogue and sounds of objects) and non-diegetic (off screen sounds narrator's commentary and sound effects). A play with these sounds can be used to create ambiguity (horror), or to surprise the audience (comedy). Although this is the case, my thriller only makes use of one diegetic sound (screaming) and the rest non-diegetic to set the mood. For example, when showing disturbing imagery, we added eerie music inspiring a feeling of fear and, a warping sound when entering and leaving the black and white flashback as if the audience really entered into a premonition. We also used a voice over to explain what was happening in the flashback as it was happening, again not giving away to much detail. To add the voiceover into the sequence we recorded it on the voice recorder and imported it into Soundtrack Pro also adjusting the volume to its maximum as it was very low. The voice over finished as a cliff-hanger leaving the audience curious about “What happens next? What is this game? Will she beat it?” etc..

We had to go through a film making process which included planning, pitching, storyboarding, filming and editing post production. The idea for the thriller kept changing as we spoke about it but once we pitched it and drew the storyboard the plot remained solid. The main problem that occurred was actually sticking to the storyboard. I drew it and calculated the duration of each clip but the final didn’t quite go to plan; it was much shorter than expected. I and my group weren’t to clear on the exact location for filming and once we were, it was difficult to establish the planned shots as we were limited to using either the left or right side of the located pathway. We thought that it could benefit us when trying to stick to the 180 degree rule which we did follow. For example, there were various shots of Nicole walking up the pathway (and running back) all shown from one side of the canal. There is never a point at which we see what’s happening, on other side of the canal therefore remaining within 180 degrees. This was important so that it didn’t look as though she was running in the opposite direction when cutting to another angle/shot. I even panned the majority of the 180 degree at which me and my group remained.


Also it was best to film everything according to location so we left certain shots out because we never made it to the location of filming. I did learn that it was very easy to edit match cuts together once the sequence was re-acted over and over again from different angles. All we had to do was cut on point and add another one at the exact same point. Another thing I learnt was how to crop/zoom clips to avoid an unplanned occurrence. For this we had to go to the Motions Tab > Scale, enlarge the image and drag into frame, this isolated the portion as it filled the whole frame and not just create a black area as the Crop tool did also keeping the aspect ratio. I also learnt how to adjust the saturation. I and my group summed up the amount of clips we had to de-saturate then divided it by the amount of clips. This was so we knew how much each clip should be de-saturated by before going into full saturation. So we adjusted each clip using Filters > Saturation and typing in the percentage of saturation.

The most recent thing I experienced was creating text on “Live Type” and the whole process of rendering and importing it to “Final Cut Pro.” After many practices from before, there weren’t many errors this time around and me and my group knew exactly what to do and how. First we typed the text into an empty canvas and repositioned where we would like it to appear on the screen. Then, in the Timing tab we adjusted the duration of the clip on screen. We browsed through every font and finally picked the one we wanted by double-clicking it, the text in the canvas immediately changed to our required font. Then we picked an animation and also adjusted the duration of it. In most cases we left the background blank so it appearred over our film, but for the last one we added a background. For this we simply picked one and double-clicked to apply. To finish off we went to File > Render Movie, making sure both background and the text were both selected for render. Live Type then export the file to our hard drive as a QuickTime file. Finally we imported it into Final Cut Pro by going to File > Import, locating it, importing it and dragging it to the timeline.

“Psycle” was targeted mainly for thriller fans aged 18 and above because of the complicated storyline but a 15 certificate is appropriate. This allows my movie opening to attract a wider ranged audience, varying from 15 to mid 20’s. The characters can relate to the audience, if not sympathize with them. It is targeted at both a male and female audience, victimized girls especially because the main character is female, whereas the psychopath remains anonymous for the time being. We went along with the stereotype of a venerable 20 year woman in a lower middle class, the average female with the interests of work, studying, hanging out with friends etc... The audience would therefore be Mainstream rather than Niche, as it would be able to attract the interest of people with different ethnic groups as well as age and gender.

I could try many different strategies to attract a mainstream audience using different marketing types. I would start with something basic like placing life size cardboard cut-outs and posters, inside and outside cinemas and movie rental stores (blockbuster) as these are the places our audience are likely to appreciate it. Also other places to attract the mainstream audience such as billboards and buses, the most common place people can observe them. In connection it is ideal to advertise in the magazines and newspapers that my audience is likely to read. For example TV guides, The Sun, Celebrity and Gaming magazines attracting people of all genders and ethnic groups. As my genre is thriller, I don’t think merchandising in fast food restaurants is appropriate, with the exception of a poster on the tray customers put their food on helping to promote my film movie. In addition a very popular method used to attract an audience which is very effective is through trailers shown in cinemas before the start of a similar movie (genre). Another way is advertising through commercials on TV on channels such as Film4, Sky Box Office and for those with no sky or cable, Channel 4 and 5. Viral marketing such as emailing to subscribers of websites like “Youtube” and sponsor advertisements like “MSN Messenger” help “the word of mouth” spread easily, especially with a free premiere preview and film festivals which increases audience interest rates. Featuring famous people such as “Halle Berry” and “Bruce Willis” promotes the film more familiarizing the audience with my movie and genre.

Actress Nicole acts a 20 year old Black British female whereas actress Carel acts as 19 year old White Female. The dominant gender is female relating to the female viewers and attracting male ones. Carels character wears a thick coat clothes to not reveal her character too much and give her a mysterious appearance. Her bare feet, tells us she “walked the wrong path.” It symbolizes divine qualities and Indians consider it the holiest part of the body therefore representing a teen to adult mixed cultured social group. However, my thriller shows the consequences of making a wrong decision and although they are both females of a lower middle working they are more easily targeted then males. Yet very unlikely with upper class females as they are not likely to been since in mysterious isolated locations but instead attend more prestigious places.

My movie has the potential to be distributed as big Hollywood Blockbuster worldwide because it fulfills the conventions of a Thriller genre such as thrilling music, tense moments, an isolated setting and most importantly a thrilling plot which categories under the sub-genre of a psychological thriller. It would release in the cinemas abroad such as America as a British film and shortly after release on DVD in stores such HMV and even online www.play.com. Maybe even if a second part releases it would show on TV to encourage people to see the second one in the cinemas. A movie such as this benefits a higher income if successful, and also qualifies for National movie awards. People can familiarize themselves with my producers for more upcoming movies; this puts me a step ahead of other institutions if mine is desired especially if my stars are nominated for awards such as Best Female Performance, which means they are favoured by the viewers.

I learnt that technology’s capability varies. I learned how to use Final cut Pro, Live Type and Soundtrack Pro all on a Mac. Final Cut Pro was able to allow a good variation of things unlike something basic like Windows Movie Maker. When using Final Cut Pro I learnt how to trim a clip on the basis of judging from two viewing windows. When I had previously edited, I captured the clips onto the iMovie and split it rather than using the “in” and “out” tool. The effects were also way more advanced on Final Cut Pro then the basic iMovie. It allowed me to adjust things more accurately like positioning of texts and make use of the many more effects it featured. When I tried creating text on Live Type I was impressed with all the variations of fonts, style, effects and background. It was like making an animation rather than just dumping text on the caption. I was able to position and play with the text and finally uploaded onto Final Cut Pro. We used Soundtrack Pro to create sound effects and mood music. An example of this is the “heartbeat” sound effect and a piano playing softly to set a concerned sympathetic mood. The huge variety of sounds helped me create a thrilling soundtrack. It allowed me to adjust volumes, merge sounds, cut audios and so on, something basic software’s are not capable of doing. Merging sounds together made my thriller more exciting as it meant there were no awkward silences, something a poorly constructed film has. We were able to view our movie in a side window so we knew exactly where on the timeline to place each sound. The meaning of the final sequence was created through shots, edits and sound e.g bone breaking for tension and feel of the scared character. We edited saturation to show the past (a flashback) and added in transitions for this so we knew when we entered and exited the flashback. Shots such our long shot/establishing shot showed the audience where, what had happened. A suicide pressured by a psychopath. The voiceover explains it all.

Another thing a professional movie editor does is constantly blog. Blogging online is essential for everyone to keep track of the filming events whether positive or not. For example what went well and the problems that occurred. I uploaded mine onto http://www.blogger.com/ which everyone has access to. Once I and my group completed our thriller we then uploaded it to http://www.vimeo.com/ and then our blog. I also had the privilege of uploading it onto Facebook a social networking website where I received nothing but positive feedback. I would have uploaded it onto Youtube but I do not agree with the terms and conditions of it. An internet audience helps widen my potential audience as anyone who has access to the internet can view it and response if desired.

I feel my movie was very successful in creating a genre thriller and targeting a various specific audience (18+). It used characters the audience can relate to, a scheming plot, a familiar location (London) and final product creating suspense through sound and effects. I felt the voice over was very effective because it was spoken in a clam tone yet it was a very intense moment. I’ve had many people ask me what happens after, and what happened before. People also asked how I and my group managed to “hang” the character from a tree without causing any harm. Most people were actually gullible enough to believe that Carel actually hung from her neck. (Which we obvisously couldn’t do without actually harming her.) Many people said that they would pay to actually watch the full film in the cinema. I’ve also had comments saying that mine was the best in comparison to others. A teacher even said that for a student post production it was excellent and very creative. My class never gave any negative feedback either, my theory is that the storyline was so good they didn’t actually pay attention to the errors we made, as me and my group had found e.g bad continuity.

When our opening sequence was viewed in the cinema we got excellent feedback. At the end of it we got loud cheers and claps which only meant that it was successful. I have been though all the stages of creating a movie and am happy with the outcome.

Pyscle: The Evaluation

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

A thriller is a type of film that uses suspense to thrill based on plot that reflects a real life situation; this can be seen in genres such as supernatural, action, horror, psychological and espionage. All openings are made to interest the audience into continuing to watch the rest of the film, the traditional way to open a film was through a series of establishing shots that lead the audience through the location, the setting and then to the main character, this worked because it clearly introduced information that the audience needed to know about the film and character straight away.

Most thriller openings begin with a title sequence to set the tone through title and credits, a flashback, to allow the audience to question what has happened or an instant arousal that immediately brings the audience into a situation that often leads to a shocking impact, all raising questions about the film. To make an opening successful, not all these questions should be answered at first, if too much is given away then there is no need to watch the rest of the film as you would have revealed the best parts already.

Arlington Road begins in a ordinary day setting with a boy walking down the street, it only becomes clear to the audience that something is not quite right as gradually elements, like unsteady walking, sweaty forehead and dripping blood, reveals that he is badly hurt, he is then rushed to the hospital by a passerby and then disappears behind closed doors of a room. This opening is successful because at first it leads the audience into a sense of false security when the boy is walking down the road, because everything seems to be normal but as his injury is revealed it shocks the audience and makes them question what has happened and when he is taken into a hospital room, it has a cliff-hanger effect on the audience as they are left to wonder what is going to happen next. Following the conventions of real film openings and influenced Arlington road we created Pyscle.

Pyscle is a cycle of a psychopathic person’s vengeance towards people; the character captures the victim and tortures them until they voluntarily give up their lives, leaving a recording as a warning for the person who finds their body, who will then become the next victim. Our thriller opening begins with a girl hanging from a tree by her neck this gets an instant shock from the audience, another girl approaches and screams in fear but then she notices the a recorder with a note attached lying beside the body and picks it up. At first glance is says ‘pyscle’ as a hint of danger but when she blinks it just says ‘play’ so she follows the instructions. As she listens to the recording of reason behind the body, a flashback is played of the dead girl escaping and killing herself, this evokes the audience attention to question what had psychopath done to her and who is he. The recording ends with “...your the next player.” as the girl runs away and then the title comes up and like a cliff-hanger the audience is left to wonder what is going to happen next.

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

When we created ideas for the for the final film opening we were more creative and had a lot more ideas than when we brainstormed over the preliminary, this was probably because we did not decide on a single genre as we did ‘a dramatic comedy’ argument so I don’t think it was clear whether the we were being serious or not, however when making Pyscle we decided that it would be a psychological thriller so we needed spend a lot more time on deciding on plot as it would need to have a motive behind issue, however I do feel that we also learnt that when we did spend more time on the ideas we ended up over complicating things.

We also learnt that in the preliminary film the dialogue need to be better and more effective because the argument that we filmed before didn’t have a subject matter so the conversation was quite random but this time for the final film opening, more effort was made to get the right emotion and story in the narrative so it would add tone. When planning to film the preliminary task we used a shot list rather than a storyboard this was a quicker way of producing ideas for different of shots however we found that it also less detailed then a storyboard.

When filming the preliminary task we learnt that when choosing a location we need to make sure that it is one that we won’t get interrupted by other people because it wastes a lot of time and can be frustrating. Lighting is important because some shots we did were hard to see because the classroom lights and the sun coming through the blinds and that when tracking we may need and object with wheels attached to assist us when tracking to get a smooth shot instead of dragging the camera on a jumper.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Pyscle is aimed towards a teen-twenties audience and would be certified as an 18, this is because of the subject matter themed in the plot, in our opening the character who is dead voiceover mentions, “He toys with your mind, makes you think things, even worse, he make you do things”, suggesting to the audience that later on within the film they may witness scenes that show the next victim going through psychological and physical torture, however the opening that we made is a mild version of what is yet to come and be classified as a certificate 15.

Based on statistics on cinema audiences from 2007, males are more likely to watch thrillers than females but I think that Pyscle will attract a mixed gender audience, because the main character is a woman. Females will feel that the film targeted towards them as they can indentify themselves as being the character as she is a regular average person and males may watch the film because the actors involved or because of the thriller genre, thus our film has a general appeal, which is what the production company aim for because then the film will make more money. Our typical audience viewer would be, Zack, aged 19, studying psychology in university, he spends most of his time doing assignments for his coursework and aspires to have a good job and earn lots of money but when he has time free he goes out to clubs and to the cinema with his friends to watch films mainly in from a thriller/horror/action category, his favourite film is Saw.

How will you attract/address your audience?

To attract a mainstream audience some of the main characters would have to be big Hollywood actors that are internationally well-known, so there is already an interest due fans and attention from the media because of the actor’s celebrity status, promoting the film. The choice of actors can also depend on the genre of the film, Jennifer Aniston regularly stars in romantic comedies, and because of this she is used as a target to attract a mainly female audience for a film. Johnny Depp plays unusual, peculiar characters in his films this is non-gender specific and so he attracts a wider amount of ‘general’ audience, Jim Carrey is known for having a frenzied comedic performance when he acts, so by starring in the film, he lets them know that the public know that film is most likely a comedy , for our film Pyscle, the main female character who is left as the next victim could be played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, because she has been in several thrilling films and is most known for starring in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a supernatural thriller TV show.

Due to new technologies the different ways to advertise a film is always increasing, depending the budget of our film we this could be used effectively. The most common way is to produce posters, this works well because they can be placed anywhere for people to see, like on billboards, in newspapers/magazines, on and inside public transport. Trailers also can be advertised as sound recordings on the radio or between programmes on the television after watershed time as that when the audience Pyscle is most like to be watching shows and on film screens, however more newer ways involve large 14 foot TV screens on the wall of train platforms for people to view whilst waiting for their train and also smaller screen line up around the station.

Pyscle’s target audience are 16+ people, therefore viral advertising would be the most effective because of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are used by teenagers to all ages who are the age group that would pay to watch our film. These sites can provide pages about fictional characters, the fans views and groups can be created based on the film that allow the public to discuss, comment and be informed about the plot, actors and release dates, promoting awareness. Also by working to together with other companies that our target audience is fond of, such as mobile network operators, by working together with the cinema Pyscle would be showed in, the mobile company can send texts to phones to inform customers about special offers to do with the film.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our opening represents women as being weak and defenceless, the main characters are a dead girl that was the last target and another girl that is becomes the next target. The dead character is represented as a victim who has been tortured by the psycho. Her age is not portrayed through her character but it is not significant, because from looking at her we can tell she is around the age of the target market. The only information we know about her is that from the voice over and her actions. The tone of her voice tells us that she is desperate, long shots of her approaching the tree but stumbling around it show that she is weak and tired, she is wearing casual clothes but with no shoes which shows the audience that she is unprotected which makes her more vulnerable.

The other girl is rather different as she doing everyday actions and walking normally and their characters show no similarity however the one thing they do have in common is, they are both females and both targets of the psycho, this stereotypes girls as being the weaker gender because their both victim’s are female and although the psycho is only mentioned and not seen, he is still referred to as being a male, superior character that people should be afraid of.

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

I think with the right companies, our film could be a Hollywood Blockbuster. Pyscle could be highly popular with the European and American audience if it was disturbed by Universal Pictures, Lionsgate Entertainment, the company who introduced the successful Saw film series and Working titles because our film is British, however the storyline itself doesn’t require a lot of funding to produce and may have a middle budget which means it probably would not be released worldwide. After screening at cinemas, Pyscle would most likely be put onto DVD.

What have you learnt from the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the process of making our opening I have learnt about how to use a camera effectively, like knowing what different shots should be taken into consideration to make a scene look ‘thrilling’, knowing that to get successful angles for match cuts, scenes need to filmed repeatedly and exactly the same, which means making sure the lighting hasn’t changed, you can’t hear unwanted sound in the background or something in the mise-en-scene hasn’t moved, so then it will be easier to edit things on the Mac’s, I experience that filming is harder than it seems, because when I was filming the ‘thrilling read’ task, the tripod was wobbly and uneven, the zoom wasn’t as smooth as it could of been and we got frustrated easily with camera, so I think I’ve also learnt with filming the larger the group, the more is people and help there is to get good footage. I learnt how to use the Mac’s because I never been on them before and what software we needed to use to edit our footage. Final Cut Pro, using it to upload clips and how to it edit them to fit the storyboard we’d drawn. Sound Track Pro, knowing what sounds was available and what suited our opening and how to use them and layer them effectively to create atmosphere or just to use as sound effects. Live Type, I learnt what fonts, effects and backgrounds we could use to make are titles/credits look good.

I learnt how it is useful to blog, so you can reflect on how the process is going so far and think about what you need to improve on and write down your ideas for the next time and then use this information to help you with your next filming or editing. It also allows you read back about when you first began the process and see far your work had developed. I know how Blogger, Vimeo and other video sharing website can be used to widen the potential audience for our product, as they allow people to comment their own thoughts about our video which we could then take in consideration to maybe to another final cut of the opening to improve it.

How effective do you feel you have been in creating an opening thriller genre film that attracts a specific type of audience?

I feel that the creation of our thriller opening was quite good, watching it in the cinema we were able to witness an actual audience reaction and feedback towards our product. We got a quite a good applause at end and some of their praise included; “ The narration creates a good cliff-hanger”, “Music is used well to create tension and suspense” and “ I like the flashback moment…how it went from colour to black and white and back again”. This was good to know because our target audience was them and to know that they liked it showed that we had done well. However we did listen to their constructive criticism too like, “some discontinuation’ which I would agreed too as well, but with the time we had we didn’t have the time to go back and re-shoot scenes, for example, in the flashback and the girl is climbing the tree with her shoes on but when she drops down off the tree her feet is are bare, but these were all just minor things that went unnoticed my most people so I still think we did well in creating a opening thriller. I think that our actual product was better then our match cut exercise because we had more time to spend on it so the script was better quality, we had sound and titles/credits so it looked more like an real film opening on the other hand because we only spent one day filming the match cut exercise the continuity was much better because there wasn’t a week gaps between filming where we would come back and be looking different to when we first filmed and I think we used more of a range of camera transitions when filming shots for match cut exercise, which made it more interesting to watch. To compare our thriller opening to a real film opening, ours is not at high quality but has the potential to be.

Evaluation of thriller

Evaluation

A thriller is a film that creates a thrill, and makes you feel a certain way. There are many types of sub-genres in thrillers e.g. espionage, psychological, supernatural and crime. The conventions are about using mise-en-scene, setting, location , sound, and editing to create tension at all the right moments. Before working on our thrillers, we watched “Watching” a documentary on film openings, it spoke about the typical openings to films being where the camera, pans, tilts and moves across buildings, until it gets to a window. Immediately the audience then identify this is the window, which will present them with their main or an important character. Arlington road is a crime thriller that uses the conventions of thrillers well. It created many moments of suspense through sound, and it was more realistic. The realism was one of the important parts of the thriller, as we wanted it to feel real, and scare the audience in thinking ‘maybe this could happen’. In our thriller sound played a big part, as it helped keep the audience guessing. The sound was realistic, and did not give away too much. We challenged the ‘classic’ opening to a film by not starting the opening outside of a building. At the beginning of our thriller, there is first a shot of feet, then head and eventually you see the body hanging from a tree. This immediately creates instant arousal with the audience, without revealing too much. This is a great way to get the audience asking questions. We took into consideration ‘a favourite trick of film noir’ by starting the thriller, not in the usual way of most (beginning, middle and end). This was great, as at the end of the opening the audience connects all together, to find it is a flashback.

The name of my group’s thriller is ‘Psycle’. The name is a play on words with ‘psycho’ and ‘cycle’, as the thriller features the idea of victims murders recurring in a pattern, like a cycle, and the antagonist in the thriller is labelled ‘psycho’. “Psycle” is a deceitful game, organised by the “psycho” to control the victim, their ability to think and mind. It starts with a woman who finds a body, and a tape. On the tape recording is the victims last message, warning of what is next to happened as she has played the tape she is now involved in the antagonists game. The antagonist is always looking for a new victim, and the person that finds the body is the person chosen. The antagonist uses the tape, as an excuse. For claiming his property, he has a right to retrieve it. Although this is the case, later the audience find out he has psychological problems. The problems’ he has affect his judgement, and is the reason for his behaviour.



The strengths of our product were a number of things including, sound, editing, the plot, everyone’s team effort and the storyboard. The sound and the editing, was the most successful part of our thriller, as it brought everything together. The sound was important, as without it the storyline would not be clear. The voice over explained what was happening, and why without revealing everything. The non- diagetic sounds helped convey, the eeriness and created suspense. The editing took the most time. It was important we picked the right shots, and angles to try and fulfil the brief, and recreate a successful thriller. The plot was the most successful part I believe as we thought about it, cut down some ideas, and created new ideas too. The plot seemed like something you would actually see in a thriller itself. Our plot was completely different to the other groups, which reinforces how much effort we put in together as a team. Our storyboard was done well, as everyone in the group contributed. The storyboard included, camera movement, shot durations, shot types, angles and clear illustrations.

We also had weaknesses, especially with continuity. In certain parts of the opening to the thriller, a character is bare foot, and then is later seen with shoes on. She also was wearing completely different trousers in two shots, which was intended to be at the same point in time. Also, the same problem occurred for the main character, her footwear changes in the opening. In addition, there is a part in the opening where the character is running, and the camera switches to another shot from a different angle. The cut reduces the distance she was running from, making it look like she had ran a greater distance, than she possibly could in that space of time. Another problem was our storyboard was too good, displaying shot types, angles and proposed actions that were not realistic, mainly due to our filming location. This restricted filming, our opening did not contain any tilts, worms eye view shots, or birds eye view shots. A majority of these problems were caused, because our filming location was undecided before we started storyboarding, we should have taken this into consideration. The voiceover narration was successful, but the level of my voice was unsuccessful. I should have spoken much louder into the microphone when recording.


The sound was the most important convention. Our thriller uses the diagetic sound of screams, and the rest non- diagetic to create an atmosphere. We used eerie sounds in the beginning go with the setting of the opening. The apple piano is played throughout mainly, as a non-diagetic sound to make you sympathise with the body. When entering and leaving the flashback, there were flashes of white and warping sounds to convey the entering and exit. The non-diagetic sound of the bone crushing after, she hangs herself created that realism need. This helped the audience easily identify the flashback. The voice over used throughout the opening, helped create curiosity and tension. As there was no dialogue this helped reveal what was going on. The voice over finishes the opening with the audience interested, and wanting to know “what’s next?”.

Looking back I have learnt that in order to create a successful piece of media you need to plan work thoroughly, and consider all aspects before you film. Our group had too many ideas, but overcomplicated them. From the match cut exercise, I learnt to think about shots types first. I’ve also learnt not only does filming take place, but also editing, sound and scripting. The most difficult thing was time management in the first couple of lessons, due to over thinking too much.

The thriller will be a certificate 15 when shown in viewing houses, yet the target audience is those aged 16-25. The thriller is targeted at this niche audience, as it allows us to identify the needs of the thriller. An example of a potential viewer of our thriller is as follows: Sienna, 20 is a university student studying film studies and law. She enjoys making films, for her website and blog. She is a regularly user of social networking sites. She reads Look magazine, her background is of working class. She shops in Topshop and Asos mainly. She is a member of the green party, although agrees with labour laws. Her favourite sit-com is “Friends”, and she often recycles regularly.

Our media product represents (16-25 year olds) social groups, as it contains young characters representing the youth and difference of this thriller. The cast will be well known actors/actresses aged 20 to 25, as the audience will want to engage in a thriller that has high profile known cast. The cast will also help reiterate that the film, is going to be something to watch.. The oldest member of the cast will be the antagonist at 25. This will again help the audience identify the difference between the cast, and antagonist. The characters will be of working to middle class.

The main character will be played by a star from the US, and the rest of the cast will be from the UK. This will allow representations of certain characters. The differences in cultures of the US and UK, is also the reason why the character responds in ways different, to the rest of the cast. The main character will be a 23 year old American YUPPIE (young urban professional), that will be portrayed with stereotypical views, held by the English. For example rather than being a “dumb blonde” she will be a “naive” brunette, who for the first time has to do things for herself. She is of middle class, and moves to England thinking it is just like in the films.

The thriller will be advertised through adverts in newspapers’, radio and television. E.g. outdoor advertising: on buses, bus shelters, posters at train stations, and billboards. Through the press, features can be used in magazines or television, with interviews with the director/ cast. Yet the main way of advertising will be from trailers (shown via the internet and TV), internet campaigns. Viral campaigning will be conducted through social- networking sites like Facebook and MySpace; they will feature on the page when the user logs in. The thriller will also have its own page on MySpace, where potential viewers can watch the trailer. I have chosen DNA films is the production company, as it is a UK distributer and has helped many successful British thrillers. The film will be released in cinemas only.

Filming our thriller gave us a practical-hands on approach, which we enjoyed. Filming even a short 2 minute opening involved a lot of filming, it was an experience. The blogs were conducted easily, yet it was hard to put everything down. You sometimes forget to include something. Sometimes without noticing you explain the events briefly, and accidently leave out the required terminology. Viewing everyone’s produced work is on Vimeo makes it feel more complete.

Our group was successful in creating a thriller as we tried to use all the conventions of a thriller. The feedback received from are viewing audience varied from, the continuity being bad, shots of legs and head not appearing real-clearly pointing out it was a dummy, to the credits working well, the sound creating tension and suspense, and the voice over being very effective. When our opening came on, everyone was quiet. The audience watched the opening, and then we receive the loudest cheers. After, everyone came up to me and was applauding the opening. People were generally scared, and wanted to know what happened next.

The finished product was much better, than the two conducted match cut exercises. The plot around the filming made more sense as there seemed to be a point to the filming. The filming was also of better quality, as we had more experience. The final changes made in the finished products, were due to the storyboard being complicated.

Cinema

We went to cinema to watch the whole of AS thrillers, so like a real film production crew, we had gone through the whole film process. When our began I already people saying that its ours is a really good one, so I knew then we would get a positive feedback from people and I was right because when it finished we got loud applause which good.

Evaluation Of "Psycle" (Thriller Opening)

A thriller film creates a thrill for the audience, hence the name of the genre. Within the “thriller” genre, there are many sub-genres, such as crime, psychological, supernatural, etc. A good thriller film creates tension at all the right moments, by using a combination of sounds, lighting, mise-en-scene, location, and setting; and, of course, editing. This constitutes the thriller conventions. A classic thriller opens with the camera moving, panning and tilting around a building, according to a documentary on film openings that we watched, called “Watching”. The camera then focuses on a window, and the audience instantly know that this window will reveal an important character or scene. A thriller film titled “Arlington Road” uses these conventions very well, and immediately throws the audience into a sense of confusion, with wild camera movements swirling around a boy walking slowly along a road. We soon realise there is blood dripping onto his trainers; and as an ordinary man drives home from work, he is thrown into the middle of this event with the boy by nearly running him over. Our film opening (“Psycle”) challenged the forms and conventions of the classic thriller. Rather than opening on a building, out first shot faded into an image of feet, limply swinging in the breeze. We then moved up to the top half of the body, and finally to a shot of the whole body hanging from a branch of a tree. This jumps straight into the story with the “instant arousal” effect on the audience, and yet doesn’t reveal too much. This means the audience have only watched a few seconds of the film and are already asking questions, which is good, as it will make them watch the rest of the film. We also used a technique billed as a “favourite trick of film noir”, whereby we started our thriller with a flashback, rather than at the beginning of the film. This throws in slight clarity to the immediate question in the audience’s mind: What happened? Looking back at the preliminary match-cut task, I feel that both I personally and my group in general have come quite far in all aspects of the film-making process. I am definitely better at storyboarding than I was, and my editing has certainly improved. Having said this, we ran into a few more problems in the coursework than in the preliminary, such as lighting, as we filmed the match-cut exercise inside, and the thriller opening outside. Filming outside meant that some of our shots were in the sunlight, and some were when the sun was behind the clouds; so in one sequence of match cuts, we had two or three different levels of light. We also had to develop our skills in post-production sound as we went along in the thriller opening, as only Fatma and I had used Soundtrack Pro before, on a different exercise.
Our thriller opening “Psycle” was targeted mainly at fans of the thriller genre aged 18 and above, because of the complicated storyline; however, a 15 certificate is appropriate in terms of the violence/language content; though, if we’d made the entire film, it would be more likely to be an 18. In addition, it is wise not to underestimate your audience, as they are often smarter than we give them credit for. All this allows our film opening to attract a wider audience range, which can vary from 15-year-olds to people in their mid-20s or even 30s. It is targeted at both a male and female audience, though especially girls, as we have a female lead role, whereas the villainous psychopath currently remains anonymous. I think the audience will be able to empathise with the characters, as well as relate to them, partly because we’ve gone for a very general, well-known main character: the stereotypically vulnerable, but admirable, 20-year-old woman, probably in a lower section of middle class, but definitely a lot higher than working class. She’s your average woman, with interests in her work, maybe part-time studying, she socialises with her friends. Therefore, the audience is more likely to be a mainstream one, rather than niche, as this current main character is able to attract different ethnic groups as well as age, class and gender. I think the very typical audience member would be about 19-years-old, probably working but not very high up the ladder, maybe a store clerk. I think they probably go to the cinema once or twice a month, but own a lot of DVDs. I don’t think “thriller” would be their favourite genre, but they like the occasional exciting thrill. They’re more likely to be fans of action films, and films that make you think very carefully about the plotline and what’s happening to the characters. So maybe philosophical action films, with the occasional thriller and comedy thrown in, because everyone loves a good comedy. They could possibly even be horror fans.

I think we could market our film through trailers in cinemas, on TV and via the internet; we could also use viral marketing to our advantage, and maybe use film festivals to promote it. As for the actors, I’m not entirely sure who we would use if we were actually making this film, although I’d personally love to see someone like Bill Nighy (Underworld, Love Actually, Gideon’s Daughter) playing the villain, and maybe someone like Thandie Newton (Mission Impossible 2, The Pursuit Of Happiness, Norbit) as the lead roll (Nicole’s character). Of course, using these two would attract certain groups that may not immediately want to see the film, therefore widening our audience range. For example, people who have seen “Underworld” may not intrinsically want to see “Psycle”, but as Bill Nighy played such a good villainous role in “Underworld” they may decide to see “Psycle” due to Bill Nighy’s presence. Similarly, Thandie Newton is famous for her vulnerable female lead roles, so would attract the audience that have seen her play that sort of character before, and liked it.

I think our film would be somewhere between a big Hollywood blockbuster and a small independent film. It would be widely distributed, maybe as a Working Title/Working Title 2 film, so distributed by Universal and Studio Canal (Europe); but it would not go across the entire world. It would definitely be released in America and the UK, and probably most of Europe; other than that, I’m not really sure. I also think it would be in the cinemas for about a month, maybe two if we’re lucky, and then go to DVD, where it would be quite popular. Somehow, it would end up on YouTube, probably because of an illegal download and someone uploading the film in small 10-mintute sections.

From making this thriller opening, I’ve learnt how to use Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro, neither of which I had used before. I also learnt how to use the cameras properly, and the Dictaphone/voice-recorder. I have also discovered that I much prefer PCs to Macs, as the inability to right-click really got on my nerves a lot during the editing process. In addition, I learnt a little more about blogging, as this is how the entire process was “captured” as it were, and particularly uploading videos onto not only the blog, but Vimeo as well, which I have never used before. Blogging involves the use of passwords to access specific pages of a blogging site on the internet, as does Vimeo. It can be quite a good way of collecting information from each student about the lessons, but since anyone with the password can access all of the groups’ blogs, you’ve got to be able to trust everyone not to delete all your work, or copy it. The opening to “Psycle” follows a quick recap of a girl/woman who has committed suicide. Through another woman finding a tape player near the hanging body, the audience find out that the dead woman is apparently victim number four of a psycho who “plays a game” with his victims. The recording makes it clear that this woman probably didn’t want to commit suicide initially, but was somehow tricked into it as part of the “game”. Now, this woman who’s found the body and recording has been chosen as the next “player”, giving the eerie feeling that the psycho can see her somehow. We used match-cuts during the running scenes to tell the whole story of the fear, and to portray some sense of urgency. We also used quick cuts and jump cuts throughout the flashback to show the whole story in a short amount of time. This also gave the feeling of speed, like the character wanted it over and done with as quickly as possible. We tried not to show the face of the “victim” to give an idea of anonymity, i.e. she could have been anyone, just some random person you see on the streets, no-one special. This throws the audience out of their normal routine comfort zone and into the world of “Psycle”. This is also quickly outlined in the voiceover during the flashback. We also dropped a hint as to what the film might be about just before starting the flashback, where the new victim (Nicole's character) finds the tape recorder, and first sees the label as saying "Psycle". She then blinks, and it says "Play". This has two effects: she is already experiencing the villain's game, and she's almost being forced to play it. Having the victim’s feet bare is supposed to represent the slight madness of this “game” that the villain was playing with her. However, I’m not sure how well that message got through to the audience. We chose a spot by the canal as it had the right kinds of trees, and looked a little eerie. It is also a rarely-used pathway, yet still public enough for it to be likely for the body to be found. This is so that the villain gets just one new victim with each “suicide case” found. As previously mentioned, we didn’t have much control over the lighting; the only thing we could do was try to film at roughly the same times; however, sound was very important. We used a piece of piano music twice, at the beginning and end of the opening, to represent the cycle story that this film tells: find a victim, toy with them, the victim commits suicide, someone finds the body, there’s the new victim; so having the same piece of music playing at the beginning and at the end almost runs parallel with the story being told just in the opening. Obviously, we had various sound effects, like heavy breathing and running footsteps that add to the confusion and panic of the characters. Also, having crows at the beginning gives a nice, creepy feel to it already, and lets us know that what we’re seeing as an audience is definitely a dead body. The creaking of the branches and rope also help to add to this effect. There is also a general monotone undertone running throughout most of the clip, this adds to the suspense factor, and gives the audience a chilling feeling.

I think we’ve been quite successful, judging by the audience’s reaction to our thriller opening (ours got the most cheers out of all the thriller openings). I heard people talking about our thriller opening on their way out, and trying to figure out how we’d done certain things; which means that although we can see several mistakes in it, the audience can’t, and at the end of the day, that’s what counts. We ran into a few problems along the way; the weather was certainly not on our side for a majority of the time, we didn’t film certain shots that we need had storyboarded, which meant that we had to adapt and change our timeline during the editing process to make up for the missing shots by using other ones. I think, as far as continuity goes, the match-cut exercise was a lot better, as we went a little over the top to make sure that we had really spot-on perfect continuity for that one; but with the coursework we physically couldn’t do that, so there are several continuity errors, which no-one seemed to notice until we pointed them out. There’s also a shot that my thumb appears in by mistake, but again no-one noticed until I pointed it out. I think, in comparison to real films, our film is definitely not as good, but having said that, we must remember that we had quite a short time-limit, and missed at least one, if not two lessons due to adverse weather conditions. We are also not a professional film-making team, we’re still just learning, therefore our film is very unlikely to be as good as a real film.

Cinema

We went to the cinema to watch ours, and everyone elses', thriller openings on the big screen. Out of all of them, our thriller opening got the loudest cheer from the other students, which put a huge grin on all of our faces, especially when we heard people wondering aloud how we'd managed to do certain things. Overall, I've gone through the whole film process, and am quite happy with the result, though as always there are some aspects that could have been better.

Cinema

We all went to the cinema 2 watch our films and get audience feedback. Out of all the movies we watched, my groups movie got the most cheers at the end. I heards people asking how we did most things, it was kind of exciting and it put a smile on all our faces.

I have been though all the stages of creating a movie and am happy with the outcome.