Individual Evaluation

Thriller Opening Sequence: Evaluation

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

When comparing our product to professional examples like Shutter Island, it is clear to me that we haven’t challenged any psychological thriller conventions that are used in the majority of the films in this genre. Nor have we challenged any thriller conventions in general.

An example to support the idea that we have conformed to the general conventions would be the narrative which should revolve around crime, like murders, rape etc. In our opening sequence we present an abduction of a little girl. Another example is the involvement of an antagonist and protagonist. To expand, the little girl could be the protagonist of the opening sequence as she is seen as weak for her incapability to defend herself against the male character. Another way in which she is weak is her lack of knowledge about the possibilities of strangers (the unknown) possibly due to her age, and wouldn’t no to stay where she was instead go with the man. The antagonist is of course the man/paedophile who would end up making the little girl feel hopeless by the end of the film. A third general convention that our product conforms to is the importance of an enigma that is hinted at the beginning and resolved at the very end i.e. the opening sequence is actually a fake event that’s happening in the mothers mind, and we later find out that she has mental problems and has been scarred from a previous trauma.

Sub thriller genres also contain their own generic conventions, different from other sub genres. Our product is a psychological thriller and we conform to its conventions. Any conflict between characters is always emotional and mental, not so much physical. Our product, if it were a full film would contain emotional conflict between the mother and the paedophile/kidnapper. Another sub genre convention that we conform to is the suspense between each character, thinking about each other and playing on each others minds. This is true in our opening sequence when the mother first of all sees the ‘creepy man’ sat on the bench, and then comes back from the car, finds her daughter missing, and instantly would start thinking about man who’s the obvious abductor.

I believe that are use of conventions, which all conform to the generic ones of thrillers, portray our psychological genre. At the end of our opening sequence we see a flicker of expressions and finally show the mother and daughter walking into the park. This is confusing and shows that someone has made it up in their head. This would be the main example that represents our genre.

Lastly, to compare to other films, I would use the example Lovely Bones, which once again uses a paedophile and a little girl. So I think that it is clear by watching our product, that we have used professional films to inspire us.

2)      How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As our opening sequence only consists of three characters, there aren’t many social groups to analyse. Our first social group that is represented is children. The little girl is obviously female, and roughly 8 or 9 years old. She is middle class and English. Her gender and age are both represented in a stereotypical way. She is the character that gets abducted which shows children as being passive, weak and inferior to men. We all see young children as unable to defend them selves and perhaps hopeless in situations like kidnapping, this is another stereotype that we conform to in our opening sequence.

The male characters age and gender is also stereotypical in our opening sequence. In reality men can often be seen as dominant and superior, and can have a lot of power over women and children. Our male character is exactly this! He can control the little girl’s actions and take her away from her mother which is a realistic risk.

Our final character, the mother of the girl, conforms to the stereotype of ‘normal mothers.’ Although not many mothers would have left the child like our character in one of the early scenes, in a situation where your child is hurt, people don’t always think straight. A stereotype of everyday families is that the bond between mother and child is sometimes stronger than with the father, which is why we chose the mother to take her daughter the park, and find her missing by the end of the sequence.

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

I don’t believe that our movie will be particularly mainstream and popular amongst the general public; I do however think it will still be distributed by a film company. But this would have to be a company that distributes/produces art films AKA art house films. This would mean our movie would be aimed at a niche market and contain a serious storyline. Another way of describing our movie would be Indie (an independent film) which would be produced and distributed by an independent entertainment company. A third way I would predict this film being produced and/or distributed is by a subsidiary of a major film studio. I don’t think, however, that this film would be produced by a Hollywood film studio.

There are similar products that have been released. Many professional psychological thriller movies contain mental illnesses and abductions/kidnapping. Coincidently, there is a new film currently being released called Gone starring Amanda Seyfried and produced by Lakeshore Entertainment. It is about a young woman called Jill whose sister gets kidnapped two years after her own abduction. But we later find out that Jill was sent to a mental institution after it was believed that she made her own kidnapping up in her head. To relate back to our product for comparison, we can see that our product also contains a kidnapping of a young that is made up in the head of her relative.

There are many film channels on television, some popular ones, and some not so popular ones. I presume that our film would be played on television but on an unpopular channel, simply because ours isn’t as professional as other films.

I think that our film would be appropriate for downloading off of the internet but I don’t think it will only be released on the internet- like I mentioned previously, I think it would be available to watch on television.

I think that this film does have the opportunity to be released and I think there are other opportunities that would open up if it were to be released e.g. a prequel or sequel. However in terms of merchandise, there are no specific characteristics that would be suitable to make figurines and bedroom accessories for.

4)      Who would be the audience for your media product?

From our research, our group found the gender, age and type of person that would be most interested in watching our film (or target audience). We realised that both males and females would enjoy our film. From experience and hearing from friends about other thriller movies, I would say that girls prefer to watch them for the thrill of being scared, however boys tend to put on a front to show that they are not scared of films and act very masculine. So I think that boys would be more interested in the plot and trying to figure the enigma of the film before the end resolution. We also decided on a range of ages that would enjoy our media product. We aim our film at people between 15 and 20 years old, however, after making the opening sequence, that I think people over the age of 20 would enjoy our film too. Perhaps those up to the age of 40 even!

Shutter Island is a similar film to ours, containing mentally disabled people and weak characters (protagonist). Shutter Island appeals to exactly the same age group 15 to 40. After gathering our research, asking people about how they feel about thrillers, most people who enjoyed them were students. Most of these people enjoyed being with friends, meeting new people, playing sports and the majority of them had a range of hobbies. Now knowing that most of the people enjoy being friends, it would persuade us to show this film in a cinema as most of them would go to watch it together.

5)      How did you attract/address your audience?

In terms of particular points in our film, there are specific scenes that would terrify/interest different age groups and genders, for example: Any young child who watches the film may feel frightened when the little girl (perhaps not to dissimilar to them) gets kidnapped. This may scare the young viewers as they realise how easily it could happen to them, and it might make them feel vulnerable. Another example scene that would attract older women (specifically mothers) who watch the older female character comes to the realisation of her missing daughter. I think this would definitely address/ get any mothers in an audience’s attention as they can relate to what it would feel like having their own child taken. The mothers and young children would put themselves in the position of the similar kind of people in the film as they are being allowed to witness the horrors of the event. The impact of this would keep the audiences attention, making sure they concentrate and carry on watching the film.

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

There were things our group struggled with during the making of this product, but we also had our strengths which improved the quality of it. One weakness we had during the filming of our opening sequence, is the struggle to keep any panning of the camera smooth and stop it from shaking. This was difficult as every small movement is visible. One area that technology that we found successful was the editing in Final Cut Pro. This was used to edit our opening sequence, cutting each scene and adding any effects. We worked well with this as some of us already had experience using it and we already new the basic techniques. A third technology would be Garage Band. This was used to make our sound track. I learnt about all the ranges of sound effects and baking tracks and how to put them all together. We struggled slightly with this as it was difficult to math it to the different scenes of our product, but we did learn, in the end, ho to match them up and keep it all to exactly the same length. Overall, I think I learnt a lot about how to use a few of the main technologies needed in this task. 

7) Look back at the preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt from the progression of the full project?

The preliminary was very useful in helping us create our final project. For example the camera and tripod: In the preliminary task we learnt about all the ways of handling the camera and how to record. We also learnt about the ways in which we could film each type of camera angle. We ended up using these angles in our real product, and on the filming day, we found it easy to work with the camera and also the tripod. From the preliminary task, learning how to attach and detach the camera from the tripod and how to raise, shorten and turn the tripod was very useful on the day of filming our actual opening sequence. 

The preliminary task also provided us with the knowledge of the problems that we may come across when filming, such as the noise of airplanes people and wind. The other problems that it helped us come to the realization of would be the lighting; throughout filming our preliminary, the daylight changed, making it more difficult to edit into a flowing piece. This gave us the motivation to film our final product as quick as possible, without taking away its quality.

When editing the preliminary task, it helped us learn the basics of all the editing software, and also gave us an idea of where certain sounds and affects were. 

Overall, the filming of our real media opening sequence was very successful and I think it was influenced a lot by our preliminary task and I would advise anyone else to practice in the way that we did.