My Film

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

I have learnt many things from the technology I have used on how to construct a film. One of the main pieces of equipment that I had to use when filming was a video recorder. I needed to get used to how to work the video recorder and how to use the different buttons on it. This was fairly simple as it is like the video recorder that i have got at home but I know how to zoom in and pan using the camera stand. The other main piece of technology i used when constructing my product was the programme that we made our film on, Imovies. This programme was difficult to use at first but when you start to use it more often you find out knew things and how to put together your film. I found it simple to use and I did not have many problems when using it. I knew how to cut different shots to make the continuity editing look realistic as possible, also I knew how to add in effects and also different video transactions from one shot to another.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I had to come up with ideas on how to attract/adress the audience within the opening sequence of my thriller film. The main important thing is to have the right type of music that will set the scene of the film and that grabs the audiences attention which builds up tension and suspence. It would feel like it has something eerie about it and I found a piece of music that fitted this convention perfectly. Another way on how I made sure I attracted the audience was by including flash backs of a girl brushing a dolls hair. This attracted the audience as I changed the colour into black and white and the way she brushed the girls hair made the audience feel uncomfortable and ask questions on who this girl is.

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

My movie could be distributed by many media institutions. The reason for this is because there is quite a few movie companies that release thriller films but the main 3 companies I reckon that would distribute my film are; 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Spy Glass Entertainment. The reason why I think that these 3 institutions would distribute my film is because they are 3 well known companies that would like to show off these sort of new films that are coming through and they have pass history of doing this. But I would think that lower media institutions would be the ones to distribute my film as they have not got the pressure on them like the bigger institutions to ditsribute a high class film.

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

Looking back at my preliminary task, it has helped me a lot to understand how to make my opening sequence of a thriller film look as realistic as posible and not to make anything look out of place or odd. One thing that I needed to edit to make my film look realistic was when Elise, Jemma and I were walking into the house at one point I was filming so I wasn't in the shot, then in the next shot I suddenly appeared. I needed to add something inbetween them two shots so the audience would not recognise it. Another thing that I noticed was that your ideas are always changing when your actually shooting your film. You will end up coming up with better ideas that as a group would think would look good so we had to adjust a couple of things. Another thing that I learnt from my preliminary task was the use of steady camera shots to fit conventions of a thriller. In the preliminary task we worked on this so this helped in our final product.

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

My media product uses different products within it. It uses the conventions of a typical thriller film for example using music that builds up tension and suspense and you can see this happening in most if not all opening sequences of a thriller. Another thing that Is common in most opening sequences is the use of not giving off too much information which leads to the audience asking questions. To not give away to much information you must use quite a lot of close ups to hide the surroundings or what’s around the close up. I used some close ups in my opening sequence, but this changed as I let my audience see some of the surroundings for example the house. So in this convention of a real media product I changed it slightly. A thing that I developed slightly was the use of my flashbacks that I used. I added in effects so that you could clearly understand that It is a flashback. I dimmed the colour of the shots and put them in black and white. Then to show that the girl is a ghost, I used a ghostly effect to make everything a little bit blurry.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

When I planned what my media product would include, I made a questionnaire to find out what age groups and genders thought about thriller films. When collecting my results I found that people around different age groups like different opening sequences to a thriller film. On this note, when planning my film, I adjusted a few things to make my film attract a certain social group. At a younger target audience I realised that they liked modern day thrillers compared to older people that liked some olden classic thrillers. As I am young, I produced my media product to people around my age, 17-21, who like a lot of suspense and the use of flashbacks in their opening sequences. In my opening sequence, I included some flashbacks by dimming down the colour of the shot to black and white and also used a video effect of gohstly to make the movement a bit blury.Another way that I aimed my media product at a younger audience was by looking at thriller films that have recently come out in the cinema that attracted the views of younger people, for example paranormal activity. So I took some ideas from this film for my film to be based around. The main thing that my film is based on is the death of a teenage girl being murdered in her home at night, but when a new family moves in she comes back to leave messages around the house.

Editing Process

In my previous lessons I have decided to change some parts of my film. During our filming we recorded some speeches with us pretending to be news reporters reading headlines on the news. For example ' Breaking news, a young girl has been murdered in her family home'. I have included two speeches, one when the couple are entering the house, the screen cuts out with a fuzzy noise, and then when the estate agent is showing the couple around the house it cuts out again. This works well in my film I think because it lets me introduce more titles over the black screens and it fits in well.

My Film So Far

In my last lesson which was a triple lesson on Friday I continued to edit my thriller film. At the moment I have changed several things to what my original ideas were. The crucial elements that I have changed in my film is the order of what my opening credits follow and how it is brought across. My original ideas where to have flashing images of newspapers after some opening credits. Now I have got a flashback of the 8 year old girl brushing the dolls hair in between my opening credits. Another thing that has changed is the idea of the estate agent showing the couple around the house, it is still there, but no dialogue is used. Instead, there is a bed of music in the background while they are been shown around the house.

What I have done so far

So far in the previous two lessons I have been editing my thriller film to make it look professional. I have been adding in a couple of sounds mixed together to make my soundtrack for the opening credits. The sounds that i have used are cold wind and 'Timbre Guitar Strings' to create a effect to make it sound eerie with a bit of tension and suspence to drag the audience into feeling uncomfortable. Also, I have made my opening credits to introduce my film and to let the audience know who made the film. I have used fade out to make the words fade out and then the next set of words come into the screen. Also, during the opening credits it cuts out from the credits into a black and white fuzzy shot of Elise brushing a dolls hair in the mirror. In the next couple of lessons I need to put in the opening shots of the film into the stuff that I have already made.

Characters Description

Little Girl: To make the little girl look scary and ghostly we decided to dress her in a black top and black tights. These dark clothes make her appearance look a bit dodgy and also shows that she is a dark character.

Estate Agent: to make the estate agent look formal we decided to dress her in a business clothing. On the top half she was wearing a white blouse with a women's blazer. On the bottom half she wore a black skirt and high black heels and tights.

Jemma as Michelle: She is wearing casual clothes. You can see this as she is wearing a long top with a cardigan and then black tights with grey boots on.

Nathan as Marvin: He is wearing a buisness like long sleeve black jumper with black trousers and black trainers.

Props and Costumes

Costume

Nathan

- Trousers and Shirt (formal)

- Jeans and Top (casual wear)

Jemma

- Trousers Top and Cardigan

- Trackies and Top

Elise

- Black Dress and Platts

Extra

- Suit/Formal

Props

- Blood

- For Sale Sign

- Newspapers

- Clip Board

Location - Elise's House

Storyboards

Progress In today's lesson

In todays lesson we focused on getting all of our story boards drawn up and to geth the dialogue-sound-camera movement boxes completed aswell. In this lesson i finished drawing up the story boards with the help of Jemma and Elise. We needed to add in two more shots for our story board and it was hard to think of what we could put into our film after already planning it. Fortunately we come up with two idea's so we drawed them both in.
Also in today's lesson we looked at what sort of music we was going to include in our opening sequence, the script and also the costumes and props. Elise worked on making the script while Jemma worked on figuring out what clothes we sould be wearing and I looked on the internet to find some music for the film. The music that I found was 'Cellos Three Chords' which is a main theme music as it sounds very eerie and could set the atmosphere for our film, 'Breath of Death', so we could use this when the girl appears behind the couple and also 'RBH Household Drip 02' for the drips of blood we see in the flash backs.

I got my sounds from www.freesounds.org.

Thriller Shot List

In fridays lessons, myself, Jemma and Elise took this time to focus on what type of shots that we will be including in our opening sequence. These are the following shots that we come up with:
- Images of Newspapers
- Close up of the words on the newspapers, for example a headline saying 'TEENAGE GIRL MURDERED'
- Close up of the girls different body parts whilst laying on the bed
- Establishing shot of the new family walking into the house then mid shots of them walking around the house
- The title sequence mixing in with the action

The next thing that we come up within our group was the title for the film. We decided to call the film 'Inner Fear'. The reason why we decided to make this our title was because all the fear from the little girl who had died will be coming from inside the house.
After that we decided to work on the order that our opening sequence will follow.
The first thing that will appear on the screen will be totall darkness, then 10 quick layering images will appear of newspapers. Then the screen will go black again and some titles will appear then we will have a shot of the new couple walking into the house. After that, our names will come on the screen followed by another 10 quick shots of newspapers but this time it will be close ups of the different headlines about the girl that died in the house. The title 'Inner Fear' will then come on the screen followed by short sequences of the couple walking around the house in different bedrooms. When we film in the bedroom, there will be a flash back of how the girl dies, screaming, then the little girl screaming will zoom in on the girls mouth then it swaps to the woman screaming. Then we will have a shot of the couple cuddling at the top window and a ciloette walks past behind them. Then we have a shot of a newspaper saying a young couple have died and no evidence has been found.

As we started to work on our final ideas we knew that the idea with the flashing moving images of the newspapers coming on the screen with the headings would not actually work as we did not know how to produce this idea. Because of this I come up with a new idea of having flashbacks of a girl that was recently murdered appearing on the screen in the house where a couple were being shown around by an estate agent. The whole reason why I liked this idea was because it would be easier to produce and it still would come out with a great effect.

We also worked on what characters we will be acting as.

Little Girl Murdered: Elise
The Couple: Nathan and Jemma
Estate Agent: Elise's Dad

Planning our opening sequence of a thriller

I was put in a group to do our practical side of our AS Media work. My group is myself, Gemma and Elise. Elise was not in school today so we had to plan with out her. So far we have come up with the outline of the story line and the locations that we will be using.
Location: A House

We come up with our idea based on a recent film that i have watched called 'Paranormal Activity'. This film is about a demon that haunts a woman since she was about 7 years old. It has been getting to her so much that the demon gets inside her body and makes her attack her boyfriend. Our story line is based around this idea.
A teenage girl was killed by a phyco when she was sleeping. Her family felt uncomfortable living in that area so they left to another part of England whilst a new family moved in to their old home. In the opening sequence we planned that we will have a flash back showing newspapers of the girl saying 'MURDERED', also pictures of her house with police tape around it and also close ups of the girls body on the bed. This action mixes in with the opening credits and is also mixed in with the eerie music that we will be playing. After this finishes, the film will start with a blank screen saying December 21st 2009 with the new family moving in.

Media Thriller Questionnaire's

Are you male or female? Male

How old are you? 21

What thriller movies do you like? Modern Day

What do you like most about thriller films? Tension

Do you like to watch films in black and white? No

How do you think a good thriller should start off? Flashbacks

How often do you watch a thriller? 2 x a month

What is your best thriller film? Sixth Sense

Are you male or female? Female

How old are you? 40

What thriller movies do you like? Don't Mind

What do you like most about thriller films? Violence

Do you watch films in black and white? No

How do you think a good thriller should start off? Internal Monologue

How often do you watch a thriller film? 4 x a month

What is your best thriller film? Seven

2 photo's of possible locations

The reason why the house will be a good location for us is because this house looks very neat and tidy but when you get inside the house it is a different atmosphere. Very tense and eerie, something wrong about it. This location would relate to the title as well.

This dark basement would be a fairly decent place for us to film. This could be where the girl gets murdered if we was to slightly change our story line to the girl dying in the basement but at the moment our story line is the girl was killed in her bedroom.

Title Sequence

In our title sequence we are going to mix in parts of the opening sequence within the titles. We are planing to have flashing images of newspaper headlines saying 'GIRL MURDERED' and pictures of her on the newspaper within the opening titles. The reason for this is because it will make our opening sequence engaging and not boring. When the title's appear itself, it will be in a strange font that we have not worked out yet, and on a plain jet black background. The title's will appear out of the background. When the title of the film comes up, 'Inner Fear', we are going to have the picture of the house and the words 'Inner Fear' dissolving into the house to show that the fear is inside the house.

Conventions of the thriller genre

In the last lesson I also learnt some conventions of a thriller:
-Bed of music to build up tension
-Jumpy Parts
-Shock
-Actors
-Victims
-Suspense
-The Dark
-Fight Scenes/Chase
-Twists
-Unexpected Activities
-Violence
-Makes you ask questions
-Eerie Music
-Screams
-Mist/Fog
-A person with 2 split personalities