1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I feel that in many ways, our thriller can be compared to and has similar conventions to thriller films of professional a standard.
We used a range of specific and effective camera techniques, such as close-ups of our main character. These shots allow the audience to understand and relate to the emotions being shown by the character’s expression; furthermore it allows the audience to empathise with her. In the screen grabs bellow, you can see an example of this from both my final product and the film ‘Case 39’.
Another technique commonly used in real thriller films, is the joint use of long shots and lighting, creating a silhouette effect. This creates enigma, while also revealing the surroundings and setting. An example of this is shown in the below screen shot from Case 39 and our opening.
Lighting is a common convention used in thriller films. We used lighting in a number of ways, to create a strong eerie feeling. We used low key lighting on young male character, making his skin a pale, ghostly colour. This technique makes the scene thrilling and scary, as it seems unnatural. The use of low key lighting can also be seen in ‘The Orphan’.
Key props are extremely important in thriller sequences, as they can reveal a number of things. We
took inspiration from the film ‘The Disappearing’, and incorporated a newspaper prop into our opening, to reveal something about the plot. By doing this, it made the narrative a lot clearer and easy to follow.
The below screen grabs show both our newspaper, and the one used in ‘The Disappearing’.
Costume is very important because if the costume is more correct to the character, their lifestyle and career, then the thriller becomes easier to relate to and thus more thrilling and interesting. Often, in thriller films the female characters are presented as a ‘damsel in distress’, and are dressed in very ‘girly’ clothing (e.g. pink, dresses, skirts) or are very sexualized and dressed in tight, revealing outfits. However in our opening, we challenged this convention, and dressed our female character in smart work clothing, without creating gender stereotypes. The screen grabs below show a shot of our character, and also a shot of a female character from ‘Psycho’ dressed in very feminine clothes.
Thriller films often use a certain style of font for their main feature title, to create a certain mood, or relate to the theme of the film. An example of this is ‘The Insider’, the font is slightly distorted,creating a tense atmosphere. For our title and credits, we used a scratchy, distressed font to create an unsafe feeling.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
We
have used very stereotypical techniques to represent social groups such as
gender, as our main character is a female teacher at a primary school. This is
stereotypical as most primary school teachers are women. Furthermore, she is
the victim in our thriller, creating the Damsel in Distress theme. We decided
to do this as women are typically more vulnerable and also as it makes it
easier to sympathise with her as we learnt from our research. Plus her age is
very easy to relate to as she is a middle aged mother again backed up by our
research that her age is easier to relate to and more realistic.
However,
using features such as mise en scene, we broke the stereotype slightly. Our
character is a modern representation of women, as she is professionally dressed
in work clothes rather than being dressed in a skirt or dress, which would communicate
a much more stereotypical female image. In addition, she is the main character in
the film, and is not shown as a sex object, as many female characters are in
modern films.
These
elements communicate that the character is serious about her job and is strong and
independent. The audience is instantly aware that she is a primary school
teacher due to the setting of the opening. Therefore, this reveals that the character is middle class, allowing the
audience to relate to her character, making the narrative seem more realistic.
We learnt through research that this is often used in thrillers, where the
setting and character are made to be very realistic, so that the audience can
relate and understand, making the film more believable.
Camera
techniques are used like close ups, eye line matches and point of view to help
the audience understand what she sees, her emotions and sympathise.
3. What kind of media institution
might distribute your media product and why?
Our
film would be distributed by a company such as; United International Pictures as
they are one of the leading distribution companies in the industry and have
worked with many major films and are known to create a considerable amount of
profit, therefore they would be a good company to work with.
Our film would be
distributed across the world, and we would use many advertising techniques to
promote our film. For example T.V adverts, film posters and magazine/newspaper
adverts. Our film would be shown in a number of cinemas across the world, and
would then be sold on Blu-ray and DVD, and also available on services such as 'love film' and 'netflix'.
4. Who would be the audience for
your media product?
We
decided that our thriller film is targeted at an audience aged between 18 to 35
years old. We have targeted both males and females, however we did consider
that a female audience may find it easier to relate and empathise with the main
character, as she is also female. We decided not to aim our audience any older,
as the characters used are fairly young. Also, an older audience may not be
able to relate to the main character, or enjoy the thrilling theme of the film.
Furthermore, we didn’t aim any younger as the film is not suitable due to
violence, disturbing nature and adult themes.
5. How did you address/ attract your
audience?
Our
main goal was to involve the audience by making our thriller realistic and easy
to relate to. We wanted the spectator to think that this could happen to anyone
at any time, making our film truly thrilling. We used aspects of mise en scene
to create a sense of familiarity. The costume used for the female character is
very ‘everyday’ and correct to the characters profession; she is represented as
a normal woman, who many of our audience can relate to. 
We
also attempted to attract the audience by using a familiar setting of a primary
school, as everyone has experienced a similar location at some point in their
life, for example from being a parent or even a teacher. We also attempted to
create a narrative that was very engaging and attractive to the audience,
therefore having a theme about the death of a student, not only engages the
audience, but interests them and encourages them to discuss the possible views
of this subject. Not only does this attract our audience, but creates more
media attention for our film as people discuss our themes and storyline.
6. What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of constructing your product?
7. Looking back at your preliminary task,
what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full
product?
Since
the preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt a lot about how to our thriller
of a higher quality, and seem more professional.
For
example, I have learnt a lot about camera techniques such as framing. In our
preliminary, there was a lot of empty space and bad framing, however I think
that this improved in our thriller, as shown in the below images. There was a
lot less wasted space above the characters head as there was in the
preliminary. However we did use wasted space to place our credits.
Another
camera technique that we have improved on is creating an interesting variety of
different shots. By adding in more shots from different angles, it breaks up
longer scenes and keeps the audience engaged. In the preliminary, we used
minimal shot variety and the scenes dragged out, however in our thriller we
broke it up by filming for a second time to ensure there was good shot variety.
Also
I have learnt how to effectively use a focus pull, which we didn’t in our
preliminary task, creating interesting shots whilst keeping the audience intrigued.
Furthermore, it can create an almost eerie and weird atmosphere, as it makes the
shot more unusual.
Using
different features and techniques of Mise En Scene, we have made our thriller stronger
by improving such things as costume. I have learnt that if the costume is more
correct to the character, their lifestyle and career, then the thriller becomes
easier to relate to and thus more thrilling and interesting.
Another
aspect of Mise En Scene that I have learnt about is location. Again I have learnt
that if the setting is an everyday, realistic place that matches what the audience
knows about the characters life, then once again this will be easier to understand.
In
addition, we added the use of important props to help the audience understand
and receive key information. For example the newspaper that we created explains
to the audience that a boy died in her lesson, this aids the narrative and
helps it flow. In our preliminary we used very little props, and the ones we
did use were neither important nor interesting.
Furthermore,
another key prop that was used was the clock, telling the time inside of school
hours. Once more, this is correct to the location and characters job. Again,
helping the audience to relate and be scared at the fact this could happen in
real life.
The
sound featured in our preliminary was only a simple diegetic conversation. This
wasn’t very interesting and had no variety to it. Therefore, I learnt we needed
to use more variety of sound. Therefore we used a range of diegetic speech and
non-diegetic speech, diegetic sound effects, a non-diegetic soundtrack, and
heightened non-diegetic eerie sound effects to create tension among the
thrilling, jumpy parts. For example, when the female character is paranoid and
is disorientated in the car park of the school, we have non-diegetic speech of
a news report.
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