Monday, 2 March 2015

final group thriller- miss.gerogiou

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West Hatch High school
168047

Mikaeel Khaliq - 9438

I also worked with Tyler Osman-9359

Sunday, 22 February 2015

q7

The preliminary task acted as a learning process for my group in regards to using the camera and tripod, it was also a situation that many of us had  not been in so i was able to learn how to react on camera even though the scene we had produced was very short.

Personally this task helped with the thriller as like i have mentioned it allowed me to learn the functions of the camera and tripod, two pieces of equipment which i have not had a lot of experience with.Aside from the functions of the camera it allowed me to have a small insight as to how to direct a scene which was my role during the preliminary task, in order to direct the actors need a direction to follow in order for the scene to be filmed in the way that i wanted. Had i not had this task it would of been far more difficult to set up the camera and tripod on the first day of filming as they were a little more complicated then i thought, there were also functions like the zoom in and so forth which took a little time to properly used.

When creating my thriller i made sure to include more angles and different camera shots in order to show a wide range of them being used, in the correct context of course. The different camera shots were used according to what scene they fit best for example high angle to show that the victim was far more in superior in comparison to the antagonist. Apart from making sure that we used a wide variety of camera angles and shots there was not much else that we could try to incorporate from our preliminary task or do differently.

Q5





Before the opening sequence went into production I decided to conduct primary research which is first-hand information I have collected. The two methods i used was the questionnaire and the vox pops which both proved to be very useful. The questionnaire was based on 40 people who answer 12 questions which we had provided in order to get a better understanding of the general public views on thriller films and their most liked aspects which were important as we want to create an opening sequence that is attractive to the general public, it also gave us a better understanding of our target audience as the people who answered had to state their age. The vox pops also aided  in this as the same questionnaire was asked which added to the results and also gave us a visual representation of the people we asked. The feedback we received proved to be very helpful as it allowed us a greater insight Of the views of our potential target audience which can now possibly help us to decrease the amount of time we spend  planning the opening sequence.

To add to this a large amount of planning was done in the upcoming months on certain elements like Mis en scene, sound, cinematography and majority of the other components of a thriller film. These all helped tremendously when deciding on what narrative to produce as these elements that had to be formed could be referred back to my research and see how other films have used sound or cinematography in the films however these were not copied as there were only taken as inspiration for our own opening sequence.

As I mentioned I also found inspiration through films which i used as inspiration for my own opening sequence which I was able to analyse in great depth which helped me to broaden my knowledge on certain subjects like conventions and characters which ultimately help when producing my own opening sequence, as I could see what worked well in those and what I would have done differently based on my own opinion.However there were a few inspirations that were mainly taken from the two films Halloween and Scream 4 which were the male antagonist, blonde female victim, use of a mobile phone and the knife. 

When comparing both my primary secondary research I found them both to be  an extremely big help when it came to producing my own opening sequence as combined it allowed me to see how the thriller genre differed from other genres as well as making a lot of decisions easier.

From my primary and secondary there were no inspirations as such however we were able to spot trends in the answers that were given for example many of the individuals who fitted the target audience liked to see their thriller films with quite a large amount of gore.We also found that they preferred eerie settings like a dark forest or an abandoned house which i then went on to use in my own opening sequence.

q4






When creating an opening sequence the target audience has to be taken into account as this can be  restrictive when the content and also allow the production to head into a particular vision depending on the target audience.

There are also other factors when deciding the target audience for the chosen narrative which are the age ratings provided by the BBFC which can change depending on the criteria that they feel is suitable for certain ages, So if the narrative seems to be too violent we may have to increase the age of the tiny audience which is not necessarily a problem in most cases.

My target audience will be both genders from the age of fifteen and above as like mentioned i have looked at various things like the BBFC's guidelines for age ratings and have also used my own judgement. The factors that have influenced my judgement consist of various elements such as the narrative which in my opinion is not necessarily extremely violent or disturbing however it does have an alarming nature about it, there were other aspects such as the ideas that we had yet to include like the use of a knife and most probably some use of profanity which would most certainly be deemed as insensitive to anyone under the age of 15.













The opening sequence i have created will appeal to my audience as when i started planning my opening sequence almost every decision made was with the view of my target audience in mind. During my research into thriller films i also made sure that the films i was researching had a similar target audience which meant that i was able to pick out key elements of the films that the target audience liked and use for inspiration in my own opening sequence, for example the use of a knife was very popular as it seemed like the audience could relate to it and it also helped to make the scene a lot more gory and violent. The narrative I have produced should appeal to my target audience as I have included certain aspects like enigma and the general narrative does not reveal too much which should keep the audience interested throughout the film. The narrative is loosely based on other films like Halloween which seemed to be very popular, for example the unidentified antagonist, blonde female victim and certain iconography have all been inspired from that film.The characters were also roughly the same age as the target audience which again allow the audience to relate more as they may be able to see themselves in a similar situation. Apart from the conventions I have mentioned above there are others included such as the variable lighting from low key lighting to more normal lighting which make certain scenes seem more intense which should make the audience more intrigued.













Monday, 16 February 2015

evaluation-Q2

The main characters in my opening sequence were of different social groups in terms of gender and age as the victim was female and the antagonist was male which through my research before planning for my opening sequence i found to stereotypical of the triller genre as many films such as scream and halloween. However the audience is not able to identify any characteristics such as age due to the hidden identity but they can see physical features which in our sequence makes the antagonist seem to appear more superior in terms of height and most probably strength.In terms of the audiences perception of the antagonist they will most likely see him to be a social outcast as he is clearly stalking the female victim of the production, this may lead to the audience thinking that he may be mentally unstable as the act of stalking is not seen as a normal action.The reason i have represented my antagonist this way in order to stay conventional as through my research the majority of other antagonists have behaved in a similar way.The female victim is represented as normal girl around the age of eighteen to about twenty five, she is relatively naive as she does not really notice that she has a stalker but apart from this she is just an average girl.The reason i have represented the female victim this way is so the audience can easily relate to her as through research it seems that the more relatable a character the stronger the relationship with the audience becomes which is a quality you want.

Thriller films can seem stereotypical with the gender of certain characters which is the case in my opening sequence as well as other media products. The female victim is portrayed as weak and vulnerable in comparison to the superior male antagonist which is vastly stereotypical to thriller films however this also the general perception of the both genders in terms of strength and qualities similar to that. While doing my research i found it to be rare and almost impossible to find thriller films that had the genders reversed as it simply did not have the same effect.So in order for my opening sequence to be as conventional as possible I had to incorporate the stereotypical gender for each character.The age of certain characters can also be quite stereotypical, for example in the same movies i researched the age and there seemed to be a pattern in the age which was that the female victims were always in the age range of eighteen to late twenties. 

The target audience throughout the opening sequence will start to form relationships and opinions of the characters which in this case will be the victim and antagonist.Clearly the target audience is likely very different relationships with the two characters as they are on two opposite ends of the spectrum,per se.The relationship with the victim will be the strongest as it clear early on that she is very helpless and vulnerable to the situation so immediately the audience want the victim to be able to free herself from the situation which we know is not possible however they audience still end up having hope that the victim is able to escape. The relationship with the antagonist is of course very different as the audience tend to despise him throughout the whole opening sequence as he is trying to hurt in an innocent girl in the eyes of the audience, so the audience tend to have a weaker relationship with him as the vulnerable victim is constantly on their mind.