EVALUATION OF OURTHRILLER OPENING SEQUENCE

BLIND CORNER

1. What was your reaction after watching our opening sequence?

2. Do you feel that the actors we used were appropriate for our type of thriller?

3. Was the setting that we used appropriate for a thriller? Give a reason why.

4. What stereotypes do you feel that we portrayed in our opening sequence?

5. Do you feel that this film is targeted at the correct target audience? (15+)

6. What scenes in particular do you feel worked well?

7. Do you feel that we built up tension and anticipation well during the opening sequence?

8. Did you like the soundtrack and how do you think it contributed to our opening sequence?

9. Did you like being left on a cliff-hanger, and did you feel that you needed to know what was going to happen next?

10.Overall do think that opening sequence worked well, and would you want to watch the whole film after seeing the opening sequence?

As you can see the questions that we asked are both open and closed .

This was so that we could get a very clear understanding of what there thoughts were, and also it gave our audience a chance to write what they thought.

We gave this out to our target audience and they filled it out for us whilst watching our opening sequence.

Audience Questionnaire for our Thriller Opening sequence of BLIND CORNER

AUDIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS

Yes No05

1015

We asked many people to come to our showing of our opening sequence and we managed to get 15 people to fill out our questionnaire. Here are the results of what they said..

Question 2:

Question 1:‘Creeped’ out, would be a good film, wanted to know what happened, scared, they didn’t want to go to the woods again!, fitted well with the conventions of a thriller, and thrilling.

Question 3:Creepy, unpredictable, could have of been darker, sinister and shadowy, it was realistic, gave a feeling of no escape!Question 4:See slide 5.

Question 5:

Question 6:Man in bushes, final scene with man in bushes, man standing at windows and man holding picture.Question 7:All said yes.

yesno

Question 8:Built up tension, matched the characters and setting and dramatic.

Question 9 and 10:All said yes.

These results showed us what worked well within our opening sequence and what didn't. We also got an overview of how well we may have of fulfilled the task. It also gave us an idea of what an audience thought of the opening sequence.

1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?Our opening sequence incorporates

generic conventions in many ways, for example; Our opening sequence develops the conventions of

a thriller as we have incorporated many conventions into one scene, which has made our audience more alert and involved.

The conventions that we have included into our opening sequence give a clue about what sub genre of thriller the film may be. For example the flashback scene may indicate that the film may be a psychological thriller, whereas the forest scenes where he is following the girl show that it may be an action thriller. This is good as the audience are more interested and intrigued.

The use of conventions indicate what films inspired us. The usual suspects was our main inspiration, this shows as we have used diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. To make it seem realistic. We also added a sense of confusion into the opening sequence with the use of a flashback. We also added a lot of action into 2.00 minuets and this was good as it built up tension well, like in the usual suspects.

•This shot is a great way of incorporating a generic convention, as we have not shown the face of the mysterious man until the very end of the opening sequence. This has therefore created mystery throughout the whole opening sequence, as we want to know what he looks like. Then when we finally see his face , we get a shock.

•By using the black and white effect we also fit the generic conventions of a thriller as it gives the scene a sense of mystery.

• Using an over the shoulder shot created anticipation and tension. It also gave a sense of mystery, of who the man is.

• This shot shows the start of the flashback scene which is a key concept in the thriller genre.

2. HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

Social Groups represented :

•Gender : The main gender represented in our opening sequence is females, as the girl is seen to be the more important character.. But there is a definite representation of males.

•Age : The age group represented in our thriller is late teens and early 20’s. This is represented by the slightly older man and the two girls.

•Class : is represented in our thriller by using middle class girls and man, and you can tell this by the clothes they are wearing, and speech etc.

•Stereotypes : The girls are definitely stereotyped as being vulnerable and innocent, by using the scene at the beginning where they are talking.

Gender is represented in a stereotypical way as the girls as I have already stated are vulnerable and innocent, whereas the man Is stereotyped to be scary and masculine and have a sense of mystery to him.

Our audience is partially represented as stereotypes in the opening sequence as the girls in the film are teenagers and vulnerable and that is what are target audience is. However the man in the opening sequence does not represent our target audience very well as not all of our male audience are stalkers and scary!

Question 4

“What stereotypes do you feel that we portrayed in our opening sequence?”

The answers that we received from this question in our questionnaire varied. But most people said;

• Young, vulnerable girls• Stalkers • Teenagers

This was a good result as they are the stereotypes that we had aimed to portray.

3. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

I think that our thriller could be produced by a major Hollywood film agency e.g. 20th Century Fox this is because I feel that it has the potential to be a very big and popular film and therefore it would need all the support and help from a major company.

•It would be an Art house film. Therefore would be shown all over countries, in cinema’s.

•It is similar to other thrillers that have involved a sense of confusion and action in the opening sequence e.g. the Usual Suspects and Psycho and they have done very well. Therefore again this is why I feel that it should be produced and distributed by a major Hollywood agency.

We would be confident to release this film as I feel that there would be offer many other franchise able products. Including merchandise. Examples could include:

•The soundtrack for the film could be released as an album, along with all the other songs that appeared in the film.

•There could be many computer/xbox/wii/PSP games that could be made in connection to our film, as there could be many potential games on our film e.g. trying to find the man/girl. Finding out who the man is, trying to work out why he was following her etc.The mise en scene/ visual style of our thriller is very animated and we would use quite a lot of CGI in it. Therefore we would also need a big Hollywood agency to help produce our film. 20th century fox would also therefore be a good choice and this is because they have strong links to CGI studios. But they are more for animated children’s films. Therefore we should need to use an agency that has produced thriller films and still has good links with CGI studios, such as Miramax Films, who helped produce The Usual Suspects.

4. WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?

Our Target Audience;

• 15+ • Males and Females • Male and Female Students as it will relate to them more, but also 18+ people who have got normal working class jobs. • People who are interested in Thriller Films, and like the sense of mystery in films. Also being on the edge of their seat during a film, and people who go home and still think about the film once they have seen it.

We choose this target audience because....

We thought that we would know what to include into our storyline as we are the age of our target audience. Therefore we would know what people our age liked to see in films, especially thriller films.

We wanted to make a thriller film for this particular audience because….

We had seen many thriller films, but none of them included what we really wanted to see. We wanted to see characters that were our age, therefore we could relate to them. Also we wanted to see a relevant storyline that we could also perhaps relate to. To make sure that our opinions were correct we asked many people in our target audience, to see what they thought and they also agreed with us.

Our thriller appeals to them as the storyline and characters are something that they can watch and relate to.

Other films that are similar to ours, and therefore have a similar audience…• The usual suspects- this is similar as it also includes a lot of action into the first 2 mins. This film appeals to a wide audience , of people who may not like full on thrillers, and people who do like thrillers. •Psycho- This film is similar as it involves the sense of confusion. The audience is like ours as the audience of psycho most probably like the fact of not knowing what is going to happen next. This is what our opening sequence also portrays, therefore the audiences will be similar.

5. HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?

This scene would be quite scary for children under 15. This is because it is not something they would expect to see. It would also possiblyScare girls as they would also not expect a man looking through a house’s window, and it may make them wonder whether this has ever happened to them. This scene would appeal to the teenage girls in our target audience, this is because they could relate to the scene and could put themselves into the scene.

The audience are being asked to put themselves into the position of both the man and the girl. We have done this by using over the shoulder shots and point of view shots.

They are witnessing the mans flashback, this has an impact on the audience as they think about what the significance is of them being able to see it. They are also witnessing the girls point of view when walking through the woods, this creates an impact on the audience as it is building up suspense and tension.

Overall we managed to address and attract our target audience by making scenes that would be relevant to them. Also by trying to involve them in the scene, and trying to make them think that they are in the film. We also made sure that we had many generic conventions within each scene, so that tension and mystery could be built up.

6. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FORM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THE PRODUCT?

The Camera’s Strengths and Weaknesses

•The camera was simple and easy to use. •It was not too big and heavy, therefore we could use it easily. •It connected to the editing computers well, and was easy to do.

•The camera was not very ‘high tech’ therefore it was hard to do some scenes e.g. Dark scenes. A s the camera was not equipped to cope with the dark. •For some of our scenes the picture was not very god as the camera could not give us a very high quality picture.

Problems we faced when filming:•We had many problems when filming. The first time we went to film it was too dark and therefore the camera could not film. Therefore we rescheduled to another day. •The next day that we tried to film the camera broke. This was a big problem as it also broke our tape that had most of our footage on it. Therefore we had to send it to a technician to fix and we then had to wait for another camera to be available. We overcame this by getting another tape and waiting for another camera, then we rescheduled to another day.

Equipment and Techniques: We managed to use tracking shots and others due to having the use of a tripod. But for the first half of our opening sequence you can see that we are not holding our camera steady and this is because there was not enough tripod for us to use on. But when we did use it, it enhanced our thriller as it made it look professional and it helped us achieve the conventions of a thriller well.

Editing Software: At first we did not have a clue about how to use the Apple Macs, but after doing our preliminary task we knew a lot more and we managed to work out how to do many effects on them. The imove software on the Apple Macs helped us lots to create many effects that we wanted. For example we did transition shots of ‘ripple’ when going into and out of the flashback scenes. It also enabled us to slow down some scenes. Which gave the opening sequence a sense of mystery. This software improved my knowledge on how you edit films, and it taught me how to do many different effects to create what we wanted.

Sourcing music from the internet:We knew that we had to find copyright free music and this was very hard to do. We had to use copyright free music as we did not have the rights to use music that was not copyright free. Eventually we found a website that we could use music from, and the music fitted amazingly well with our opening sequence. We were very pleased.

7. LOOKING BACK TO YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL THAT YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROCESS FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

Planning•By doing a detailed plan of what we wanted in our thriller it helped us realise what we needed to include for the thriller genre.

•Researching many other thriller films gave us a good idea of what we needed to include in our opening sequence.

•It also helped us realise what shots we needed to capture to fit the thriller conventions.

•The storyboard helped us as we had a good idea of what it could look like.

•The shooting schedule helped us lots as we knew what we were filming etc, this helped us as we managed to film our scenes smoothly.

Filming the preliminary task:Filming the preliminary task helped me get used to all the different shots that we needed to include in our opening sequence. It also made me confident in using the camera, and therefore it overall improved my camera skills and getting the different shots needed e.g. match on action, point of view. It also helped me use the Apple Macs, as I got used to the editing software and knew how to do many editing techniques.

My confidence using the equipment definitely improved after the preliminary task as I knew how to use the camera and I could confidently use the camera and tripod to film scenes in our opening sequence. I also knew how to do many editing techniques when editing my main task .

Overall I feel that our product has fulfilled the task. This is because we have made a believable opening, that looks professional and most importantly fits the conventions of a thriller . We have worked well together to meet all the needs of our opening sequence and therefore have made an opening sequence that people like, and want to carry on watching.