Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1

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

In the Thriller genre of film, it is evident that there are key conventions that make a Thriller. In many Thrillers, these conventions are shown and sometimes they are shown in a different way but still have the same purpose. Thrillers commonly include elements such as cliff hangers. A cliff hanger is a plot device used in films to engage the audience by cutting off a part of the film. For example a boy is being chased by a group of men; he wants to cross the road but cannot because of the traffic. What does he do? Does he risk his life in by attempting to cross the road or does he let the men catch him? Cliff hangers are extremely effective as they create the feeling of tension and suspense. The purpose of cliff hangers is to engage the audience and force them to want to continue reading the next series of a book or to continue watching the film to see what happens next. In my media product, we analysed many cliff hangers in Thrillers and found that it was highly common and also very effective as we all agreed that we would continue to watch the film because of the cliff hanger. This gave my group and I confidence that we could utilise a cliff hanger in our own product. In our product we used a cliff hanger at the end, we did this because when analysing Thrillers, we found that most cliff hangers came towards the end of the film and the end of chapters in books. I believe that our cliff hanger was very good. We see Sarah entering the house, completely unaware of the danger that she was potentially in. She walks in and the Stalker along with his friend grabbed her and we hear Sarah scream. This is very effective as we do not know what The Stalker and his ally did with Sarah but the audience should be eager to find out. We did not develop the use of the cliff hanger as we were not sure how we could take it one step further. In addition, in our own Media product, we used the typically love interest. We were inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock Thriller ‘North by Northwest’, in which Roger Thornhill falls for a dashing blonde haired woman. However we analysed this and changed it slightly. In our own product, The Stalker is actually in love with Sarah but because she cheated on him with the most popular boy in school, he does not know how to react as he has mental problems. The only way he wants to get revenge is to set out and kill Sarah. This shows in our product that we have looked into the idea of love interests in thrillers and have adapted it to our own. On reflection it may not be evident that the Stalker is actually Sarah’s boyfriend as we did not make it clear to the audience. In thrillers, you will often see fast paced action and cut scenes because Thrillers are about excitement and drive. The fast paced cuts make it seem as though the Thriller is moving at an incredibly high speed. This is very common in many Thrillers, particularly in chase scenes. In our own Media product, we tried to emulate the idea of fast paced cuts. However it was very hard as if we had used fast paced cuts the audience might not have seen the full surroundings. We did however use really fast cuts in the part where Sarah enters the Stalker’s house. There are many different angles and it was me who cut them up and placed them together because after looking into many Thrillers, I realised the fast paced action present in nearly all of them. The fast paced action does not have to be throughout the film but it just makes the film incredibly entertaining if it is present in one part of the film whether it is a chase scene or just a casual scene.

Doing The Voice Over

The Voice Over

In our film, we realised there was a problem. When the Stalker found Sarah's phone, he then offered her to pick it up in 20 minutes. So this would be sometime in the evening later, but because we had filmed all the scenes needed for that day we stopped. So the next day we continued to film and obviously it was a new day so when we filmed it, it was day time rather than night time when the stalker said 20 minutes. This was a problem because it then looked very unrealistic and just didn't work. Fortunately we where able to modify this and re record my part again using the application Final Cut Express on the Apple Mac. I recorded myself saying "come over to 24 Oxlow Lane" and then inserted the voice recording over the error and this is how we where able to overcome this problem.

The Second Day of Filming

Day 2 of Filming

The second day of filming was very strange and I will explain why. This day happened to be a school day and it was a Thursday and we had almost a 2 hour break before our media lesson so we decided to take advantage of this and film. We all met up at my house again because this is where we filmed before and we continued on from where we had left off. So to continue we filmed Sarah actually entering the Stalker's house with the door wide open. She was curious and decided to walk through the house because this was the address that the Stalker gave her. She walked through the house saying "hello" and is then taken by the Stalker and his friend. Now the reason I said this was strange is because this was supposed to be the part where the film starts to get interesting. Unfortunately the rest of what we filmed had poor handling of the camera and we where ultimately forced to cut our film short so we couldn't see what happened to Sarah after she was captured. Nevertheless, the product still looks good even though in reality it was not finished.

The First Day of Filming

Day 1 of Filming

Today we filmed the first part to our Thriller. We met up at my house as it was the ideal location for my group to meet as no one had to really travel far. It was very exciting to be able to get straight in to making our thriller. The first scene we did was just on my road and this is the scene where Sarah drops her phone. We did this scene three or four times because we wanted to get a variety of shots. We had to film quickly because we met up around 5:30pm and it was getting rapidly dark. As Sarah walked down the road we took lots of different shots and angles such as a P.O.V but we decided not to use it because the audience would not be able to see that Sarah drpped the phone. We also took a shot of the camera that was directly behind her, in front of her and above her so that the camera was looking down. Perhaps if we had used the shot of the camera looking down on her, it might have been more effective because when the camera is looking down on someone, it puts them in a position of inferiority and this could perhaps foreshadow that something bas might happn to her. After shooting this scene numerous times till we got it nearly to perfection we then progressed to my scene where I am the Stalker and I will be picking up Sarah's phone that she dropped. For this scene I was not sure what type of shot we could use for this scene. I was rather reluctant to use the same shots that we used for Sarah's scene where she drops the phone but having taken many differents shots and angles, I thought that that was the only appropriate shot I could have used. However having reflected and watched the film many times, I can see that a shot from behind me wouild have worked really well. By not seeing my face when I pick up Sarah's phone it creates a sense of ambiguity and a mysterious feel to the film. Then we had finished the scene and moved on into the scenes inside the house. The first scene in the house was the one where I called Sarah and offered for her to pick up her phone from my house. These scenes where done using the close shot. When we did this scene of our conversation, a problem occured. I said to Sarah 'meet me at oxlow lane in like 20 minutes' however after doing that scene Sarah had to go home because it was getting late. Our group did not realise that it was late so when I told her to meet me in 20 minutes we did not change this so when it came to editing the film on Final Cut Express we had to somehow change this and this is how we made the voice over.

The Stalker Trial

The Stalker Trial

This was a quick test run of how the shots we did looked, by doing this we where able to pick out and see the best shots and the ones that where perhaps unsuccessful. We took a variety of shots and angles as you can see below.

Mood Board

Mood Board

Here is our Mood Board for our Thriller 'The Stalker'. This Mood Board should help you understand the type of Thriller we are going for and what will be in it.

Order Of Title Sequence

Order of the Title Sequence

After the IDENT use a FADE IN. The titles should then be in the following order:

(1) 'Your Production Company' Presents

(2) A Film by 'One name - usually the director'

(3) Starring or With

(4) Male star

(5) Female star or other way round

(6) Title of film - or could be at the end

(7) Also starring - 2/3/names - each on seperate title

(8) Then 3/4/5 of the following - you choose - each on seperate title

Editing

Music

Cinematography or Director of Photography

Casting

Set Designer

Costume Designer

Script

(9) Then Producer(s) - can be more than one

(10) Always finish with Director - one name, usually the same as A Film By ...

(11) Could put title here

Remember to use LiveType and try to make titles interesting. They can be either over black or superimposed over your film. Space them out over the two minutes of the film.Give the audience plenty of time to read the titles. 

(12) Finish with a fade out & fade music out