Thriller Evaluation - Dan Sheridan

1) In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? From the feed back that i have recived on facebook from the people that have watched it, our thriller raises questions just like in a real thriller, it raises he questions of why is the girl in the corner, what is she to do with it? what does he owe him and why? who are they? and what have they done ect. These questions make the viewer want to watch the rest of the film so that these questions get answerd. anather aspect of a thriller is to thrill and have an interseting and thrilling story, ours is about gambleing debts which have had a big feature of crime thrillers in real media products. this makes our product in the thriller genre. we used the same type of scenery as in james bond casino royale and through tis we adapted it to make it our own, however in the james bond clip we know about the charecter as this is halfway through the film, ours is at the start raiseing the desired questions.

                           (you may have to skip some time to get to the torture sequance)

As in any film, music is very important. in our film we have used verry tense and chilling music to put our point across that this isnt a verry nice scene, this adds effect to the film. we also use silence in our film allot, just like in conventional films again like casino royal the scen of him torturing bond was a silent background, adding the effect of solidarity just as we have tried to get the same effect with the silence in ours.
                        Anather way that we used in our film to portray an unfriendly feel is by useing low lighting, used again in casino royale, we tried to make it look as if it was a single lightbulb, plain boreing and just swinging in the centre of the room, adding the effect of spookyness aswell as lonlyness again.

Anather way that we tried to portray that it was an isolated location was with the use of the soundtrack haveing a likeness to the windblowing, and the lighbuld just swaying. only this, the soundtrack and the punching is the only sound. allow the audiance to belive this location is isolated and that there is no hope of rescue. again there are many films that have used this technique of silence and when mixed with the lightbulb combonation it leads to a verry effective and convinceing torture scene that will send chills down the spines of the audiance.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups? Our media product reprisents the gangster type social group where he has loned somone money who has lost it all in gambleing and the boss wants it back, the gangster type is the normal small boss guy whos in charge of the hole thing that never does any of the dirty work, he has a henchman that does all of that for him. Hes the steryotypical big strong guy who rarely talks except with his fists and only does what his boss tells him. Then we have the person who got the money lent to him, he is just a normal person who got in with the rong people now he has to pay for it. we have the girl in the corner, as usual shes helpless not even tied up in the back of the room, she dosnt say anything and cannot fight for herself. shes just being used as a type of "insurance" that the boss will get his money back, finally we have the man at the the back of the room playing cards, hes a mysteryous man who dosnt talk and just looks sinister. his part in the film is anather gambler but he works for the mobsters to get the money, he is a type that cheats and gets away with it.

3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Personnaly i think that we would distribute our product contry wide instead of regionally, this would then bring in more money and have a bigger audiance range to enjoy our film.i think that we should get a distributer that is  well known but at the same time has distributed films of this genre before. |I think we should use momentum picrtures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum_Pictures) for the reason that they are very well known, have brought out many popular films in the past and they deal with thrillers allot aswell as other genres. a well known companie is good to have to distribute our thriller as people will know this compaine and if they have had good films under their companie before they will have the reputation and people prefere to buy from companies with reputation as they know the sort of quality and popularity of the films that this companie has distributed in the past. momentum pictures have distributed films such as the crazies, the girl with the dragon tatoo, haywire and more. all these films had a very good review and were very popular, this will have then put the reputation up for this distribution companie.

4) Who would be the audience for your media product? Our primary target audiance being teenagers (15) and above. We would put it into cinima's around the contry we would be distributeing it to, this will then promote our film along with the advertiseing and intise people to buy it once distributed. we would be advertiseing it with poster in cinima's before it comes out into the cinima, have trailers on current DVDs and blue rays and then trailers on the TV aswell. this woll reach our target audiance as this would be what most people this age will be doing, the cinima will attract people to this film as they are there to watch films showing which shows they like to do that, then they will see the poster and it would interest them to watch it. trailers on blue rays and DVDs will mainly be on thriller DVDs as its in the same genre people who would have brought the film must like that perticular genre, this then isnt just promoting to our target audiance but alos to out primary genre promoting it to two different audiances at once. the trailers on the tv would have two types, one trailer that is family friendly that can be shown during the day, this will then promote the film to people who have kids or baby sit or work nights, then there will also be a trailer to be shown after the watershed this will have more action in and more of the thrill. this will agian then talk to the people that work days, dont watch there TV programs till their kids go to bed or even to people who just watch TV at night. the point is that through all of these ways our target audicance is reached and so is the audiance of that genre.

5) How did you attract/address your audiance?  Like i said the question above, by useing advertisements on TV, Posters and current DVDs and blue rays (mainly of the thriller genre) these advertisments will be interesting exciteing and action packed (more action after the waatershed) this will apeal to the audiance as a thriller needs to be exciteing and interesting so if the advert isnt then whats going to make them think the film will be. anather thing is that if it isnt exciting and interesting then the audiance isnt going to watch it and are going to get bored and go do something else. The trailer wouldnt give any vital information away but will show some of the main parts of the film to give them clues and make them ask questions, This will get the audiance interested and make them want to go see this film so that they can then find out the answers to the questions. The distributer that we have will also help, if we use a well known one like i have picked abouve (momentum pictures) then they will have reputation so this will also help boost our audiance with people familliar with the films thhat this companie has brought out in the past.

6)What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?   throughout the makeing of our movie, i learnt more about the editing softwere final cut pro, when we did our prelimonary we only used basic and simple effects from the softwear, wehereas during this production we have all had a go at the editing, all put an input and have all experimented with the effects to get the best out of what we had. i also use3d the softwere audacity to edit the soundtrack, we wernt allowed to use coppyrited music, so what i did was i got together some of my family who play musical instrimunts and got them to play some music, then useing audacity i put the music together aswell as adding some stock sound avalible from the internet i put it together added some effects that were avilible from there and then it was ready to be added to the movie and placed whereever we needed it. i also learned more about the camera and the effects that can be done all with positioning, the actual cameras effect themselves and external lighting to add shadows, remove shadows and again give effect to the scene. we also had to use filters in our production to get the desired effect, again even tho this was simple the effect was far greater then the amount of effort it took to do. We had to use the dolly for a tracking shot in our production, we used this to move the camera in a different way to what had been done during anather part of the movie, this worked well and gave the desired effect, although it was hard to do we managed it in about 45 mins for a 10 second clip.                      

7) Looking back at you prelimnary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product? Our preliminary task i think went well but we wernt verry experiance and didnt have alot of knowlege on things like the importance of lighting and that 9 times out of 10 it is artificial or there is part artificial. we didnt know about stuff such as all the camera shot and angles that we do now. This thriller though went allot smoother when we knew what we were doing and we were allot more confident in it. since the preliminary we have been alot more adventurose with our camera angles, shot types et and the editing we were allot more comfertable in aswell. All this extra confidence that we gained through the lessons that led to the filming and editing this product helped alot with the way that it came out in the end. if we compare the two videos that we have made, the preliminary we only used simple shot, angles and effects wheras in this one we have tried harder to be adventurouse and use shots and angles that would make the final product look and feel more interesting and want to make the audiance want to carry on watching, wheres the preliminarry i dont think that it wouldve been as exciteing and wouldnt of drawn as much attention.

Josh Brown evaluation for Thriller coursework

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

The idea of a thriller is to raise questions for the audience. They keep the audience watching because they want to their questions answered. A good thriller should keep up suspense and tension. Although our media production will never challenge the quality of a real media product intended for public viewing, i do think that we have accomplished the basic and some advanced structures and conventions of a good thriller. We tried to stick to original ideas of this film gendre. For example, we decided to set our thriller in a run down garage and the identity of our victim is not revealed for a while.

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


I think that if our movie opening was a full feature length movie, it would attract social groups interested in action movies. Audiences who prefer to be sitting on the edge of their seat instead of watching an affectionate romantic love story.

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


If our movie was a full feature length film, we could choose to distribute our movie. There are many media institutions to chose from. However, various institutions are dedicated to selling different types or movies. Some aim for bigger budget movies that have taken vast amounts of time to produce with well-known actors. For our movie, we had a very small budget and no famous actors. Therefore, no big institutions would be interested in distributing our movie. Two distributors that might consider to work with our movie could be Dolby or Warner Bros inc. Dolby were responsible for promoting and distributing the movie Cloverfield, a horror/mystery which received a 10/10. Warner Bros inc are hugely famous and have promoted smaller movie such as Eight Legged Freaks to massive world-wide sell-outs such as the Harry Potter franchise. This shows that they have a wide selection of various budgets and genres in which they work within.

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


In my mind, our product was aimed at both genders over the age of 15. I think we have achieved this because our movie was based around a gambling theme with little explicit language, no nudity and some violence. Therefore, i concluded that it would not have been suitable for persons under the age of 15. I estimate that people over the age of 40 would not be very interested in our movie because audiences tend not to watch violent movie at that age.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?


To promote our thriller opening, we uploaded social networking sites and posted it for all our friends to see. This way we were able to get feedback and how we could have improved. For a full feature length movie, the same approach can be used. In the present day, i have observed that movie distributors are using social networking sites to get their movie heard of. This is a very clever method as it is quick to view and anyone can see it. Other popular methods include trailers in cinemas, in DVD's and on television. Television advertising is very popular as most of the population of the world have televisions in the present time, this way, millions of people will instantly be aware of the movie. Advertising on posters has been used for a long time. However, with advancements in technology, people do not need to leave their house as much because most things are now online. Therefore, advertising posters are seen less.

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

During the production of this film, i was introduced to a dolly for a tracking shot we planned to shoot. We mounted the camera onto the dolly so we were able to move the camera around without the wobble of doing it by hand. Another technology i learnt about during this project was more advanced features of the movie editing software we used. We used a cropping feature to hide the outside parts of a picture so only the center of the image was shown. This gave off a more professional effect.

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


Since our preliminary task, i feel that i have learned a greater understanding of why particular shots are used to emphasize, back-up or reveal a significant point within the plot of a moving picture. Why, when all the different factors of a shot have been put together, do they suit the scene or theme of the movie. I have also learnt the significance of opening titles of a movie. How they are positioned and why. In our movie, we had not focused on the opening titles. For better quality we should have created a plan of how they were going to appear.

Anna's Evaluation for Thriller course work

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

A good thriller opening's main priority is to entice the audience to make them want to stay and watch more. Our production like any other raises questions from the very beginning. The immediate ones being; Why are they there? Who are they? What have they done? As our production progresses yet more questions are asked; Why does he owe him money? Why is there a girl there? Was she involved? None of these are answered in the our opening and many of the characters are left anonymous leaving mystery. The beginning of our production is also the very end. I think of it as the last page of the book being read before the prologue. This is similar to the opening of Mission Impossible (2006).

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

Our final product is an action based thriller opening. In the two minutes 30 seconds you get heart racing intensity, it leaves you questioning what more is to come. As the saying goes "start as you mean to go on." If this was a full lenght feature film the type of audience that films such as MI3 and James Bond attract i.e anybody who craves a good action adventure would be our target audience.

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

Momentum Pictures (also known as Alliance Films UK) founded in London, England 2000 is the one of the many leading independant distributors in the UK and Ireland. On average releasing 20 theatrical films a year, including the recent 2012 Woman in Black making a domestic and foreign income gross of $121,787,489. In my opinion this institution is our ticket. Releasing on average 5 thrilling and popular films a year Momentum Pictures not only is a UK film distributor but release more of our genre of film than any other kind. Action-based thriller. In 2009/2010 alone they released; 44 Inch Chest, Brooklyn's Finest, The Horde, Skyline, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest.

     

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

I'd like to think our thriller opening appeals to both genders 15 years old and over. After gaining feedback from the social networking site Facebook, the majority of those who gave me feedback were females aged 15-18 and not only have all agreed for the target audience to be 15 years + but all have commented on how good it was and how they are intrigued to watch the rest. I screengrabbed a few of these comments and is to the right. Being stereotypical this will appeal to boys naturally with violence and action being the main topic.

Even though our target audience is 15 year olds and over I have rated our short production a PG-13 as there is little violence and threat reference. Similar to Mission Impossible III (2006) which holds 'intense sequences of frenetic violence and menace, disturbing images and some sensuality' and is also rated a PG-13.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I posted our final production on  a social networking site to gain feeback from friends; what they thought the target audience was? What improvements could've been made? Aswell as their overall opinion. This was not only constructive critisism but gave us the oppurtunity to promote our opening free of charge. Many of the famous distributors are turning to this aswell. Simply because it's another way of getting it out there free of charge and with social-networking sites dominating at the present time anyone, anywhere will hear of it. Accompanied by advertisements on television and trailers in the cinema, online blogs and newspaper reviews etc.  

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

When simulating the countdown timer we photographed the individual 10 shots and added a bleeping sound with garageband. We had to crop these photographs down on final cut pro as the wiring and box was visible. This gave a far more professional and realistic finish. For the hitting sounds we searched on garageband for a suiting sound but couldn't find the match. We decided on making our own foleys using a voice recorder. For achieving the best sounds we tried lots of different techniques including Dan slapping Josh in the face while I held the recorder.....this suprisingly worked the best and we enhanced the sounds and added bass to it later in final cut pro. The biggest lesson learnt concerning technologies was getting my head around the complex macs to enhance and and create a proffesional finish in all aspects of our final piece.

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

In the making of our preliminary task we found it difficult to fill the time space of the task, we overcame this by extending the duration of our shots. In this case, however, we found we had too much footage and we wanted to use most of it. We were able to use most of it by cutting the duration of the shots and using matches on actions between cuts, not only making for more interesting viewing and showing proffesional techniques but using more footage up. In lessons we have learnt a great deal more since the production of our preliminary task including that of camerawork, editing, sound, mise en scene and the effects they portray. We were able to use these and understand the meaning of these.

Final Product - four

This video has also been posted to youtube and will also be put onto Facebook so we can get feedback from other people out of a media class as well.

youtube link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF5Q-YVQazI

we have posted a link on facebook that leads to the same link above and have asked for feedback from anyone who watches it. the people who we asked to watch it and comment were at the correct target range  that we wanted our audiance to be.

3 title sequences by Josh Brown

Zombieland


This title sequence feels rather unique because it's not often that movies use titles that interact so physically with the subjects in the frame. Unlike most titles in movies, some text is actually positioned in the way of characters so they can interact with it. In the first frame, a man is seen being thrown from a balcony in slow motion. The text "Columbia Pictures presents" is seen floating underneath the balcony. When the mans flaying arm comes in contact with it, individual letters begin to get knocked out of the way. When the title of the movie is presented after a few actors' names, it is shown floating in the air in front of a man with a crowbar. He swings the crowbar forward and a smashed glass effect is applied to the text and the rest of the screen to make it look like a big pane of glass. The "I" of Zombieland is smashed away when the bar is torn through. In my opinion, i found this interactive title sequence very eye catching and effective.

Filming...the making of!

The Make-Up

Make up effects by Helen Sewell and Monika Sewell!

Opening credits research - Anna Sewell

Casino Royale

This 3 minute clip starts off with a point of view shot. Bond is 'shooting' at the camera which makes us as the audience feel threatened. This is framed with a circle, suggesting it's the gun barrell. After the shot is fired, animated blood drips down the screen. This covers it completely in red and acts as a very slow sweep to the next shot, which is the spiralling card suits. With this being the very start of the film it is implied that this film could be about gambling. This raises more and more questions in the audiences mind.  The sound is fast paced, upbeat, daring and adventurous, the lyrics are well suiting...

 "If you take a life do you know what you'll give?

Odds are, you won't like what it is

When the storm arrives, would you be seen with me?

By the merciless eyes of deceit? "

-- perfect for this opening.

Taxi Driver

The music for these opening credits  alternates between two sounds. One being sexy and sassy - the kind of music you'd hear in casinos, the other being harsh with cresendos and drum rolls. This shows the two sides to the film and the sexy and sassyness is almost contrapuntal for a thriller. The two sounds don't flow together well, they simply cut from one to the other, no fading or dimming in sounds. The credits fade in and out and at least one is shown at a time - briefly two always. With the scene taking places on a dark night and the credits being a dim golden orange the credits would not be visible on their own. Because of this Scorsese has subtly placed them against the white smoke billowing from the back of the taxi and as a result are easily read-able. For 'Taxi Driver' the taxi in the film slowly sweeps across. As it moves further and further across the screen we are focused to the boot of the taxi which is slowly revealing the letters - the car is driving left across the screen and as a result the first word to be fully shown is 'Driver' which is unusual.

Lord of War

This entire opening is based on the tracking of a bullet. The flow from production to where it's made to what it's job is and what it does. For a military setting the music is contrapuntal, performed by Buffalo Springfield the folk rock band's music doens't suit the setting very well. A happy, acoustic song alongside miltary and a weapon of death. This is used to entice the audience and raise questions in their mind. The credits are of a small font and are a crisp white colour (pale but strong) which contrasts with the dirty and dullness of the production factory. This may be so as they stand out against the rest and our eyes aren't wandering looking for them. Being a white colour they are always placed against a dark backdrop and are therefore visible. The credits also don't fade in and out but simply appear and then are gone.

Titles Reaserch By Dan Sheridan

I have found three title sequances that are all different and one un commonly used one that i find vrry interesting.

• The Butterfly Effect
• SWAT
• Casino Royale
• The Dark Knight (this is the unusual titled one)

1) The Butterfly Effect:
     The title sequance starts streight off in this film with a quote which is from chaos theory - this quote says "It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterflys wing can ultimatly cause a typhoon halfway around the world." this quote is important to this film. during the film he finds a way that he can change his present by in a sense, going back in time and changeing what happend. even the smallest of things he changes when he goes back changes something big in the present changeing his entire future. as this quote is being played there is an eerie sort of technological fluttering going on as the backing soundtrack. this sound is used later on in the titles where it says the films name. The quote stays on screen for nine seconds then fades away into the opening scene. During thisd scene we see the camera is in a fixed position but is panning left, it reaches the corner of the room where in between the two windows on either wall there is a dark area, in this dark area there is a title, this is a white text on a dark background, this makes the words stand out and easier to read, the camera pans away from it and they use this pan to get rid of the title. Then it carries on the rest of the opening until the end where he is writeing a note, the camera zooms in on the last two words that he writes down which read "save her" while he is writeing this note he is speaking it allowed so the audiance can hear what he is writeing as again it is importanct to the film. as it zooms in the part where it says save her the is in the whole screen where at which point it starts to crack and break away into the shape of a butterflys wings, this then starts to get more transparent and fade out. Behind it there are butterflys flapping their wings and flying around the screen, these then also fade out until finally a big butterfly flys into the centre of the screen this then starts to merge with a MRI scan that has started to fade in from behind. On this mri scan we can clearly see a large tumer on the brain, this is anather key to this movie and understanding it. The butterflys and the MRI scan is blue and when the title "The Butterfly Effect" appears over this blue in white text, it clearly stands out and is easy to read. the title has been centerd directly in the middle as thats where the butterflys and the scan has drawn the audiances attention to. then tit fades out to the next scene but the title stays on for a few seconds then fades out.

2) SWAT:
     This starts with blue flashing lights supoidly being police lights flashing on the screen against a black background, this interpretation of it being a police light is becouse blue is commonly associated with the police and it is a film about swat which is part of the police. the words that are gonna appear start big and only a few letters are showing partly moveing around on the screen behind the blue lights. This is then followed by the full words fadeing in in the centre of the , these are in a white text and are placed on a black and dark blue background, again anather way to draw the attention of the audiance. during this title sequance we hear a police radio talking about a situation that is happening which then gives the audiance a clue to what the next scene will be about, this is also anather way how the audiance interprates the blue lights with the police. This title sequance then fades out of black into the next shot. In this film the title sequance is short, it gives all the information needed (name of film and the coumpanie who presents it (columbia pictures presenrts)) this short introduction allows the action to start sooner, it grips the audiance just enough to keep them there till the opening sequance starts which then takes over.


3) Casino Royale: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzX14t4dCQ0
     bond picks up a gun and points it towards the screen the he shoots, the screen at this point is in what supposidly ment to be the baral of gun. Blood then starts driping down and filling the scene asif someone has been shot and we are seeing it from a type of POV shot.  then the music starts as the blood gets halfway covering the screen, this is when like all other bond films keeing the tradition the title sequance turns into a sort of music vidio but relevant to the film and only includes the charecters. the words that first appear when the blood is halfway dcovering the screen say "Albert R Broccoli's production LTD presents" this then moves into an animated vidio with the theme of gambleing all to do with the film itself. all the vidio is made up from black and red coulers, these are the coulors of the playing cards and are made up of the shapes or somehow go into the shapes of the playing cards (clubs, hearts ect) This vidio also includes other types of gamble items such as roulet wheels. bond is in nearly all the shots in this animation and is fighting and shooting, when he kills a bad guy they turn into lots of the card suites (e.g clubs) and when he fires his gun the bullets are also the card suites. the white text that appears throughout this title sequance always stays out of the way of the action so that its not in the way of the action and vice versa. The titles and words itself are set out in a neat way and are organised and in the same pattern everytime, even tho the words arnt in the same places they are neatly placed around the animation.

4) The Dark Knight:
    This sequance I found very interesting. it starts with the blue warner brothers sign, blue being a dark couler, the blue is on a black backgroung throughout this sequance, then the screen is filled with a blue smoke and then there is a clearing forming in the middle of the smoke, this is in the shape of the batman symbol, this is black so it stands out from the blue smoke and is easy to see, this then cuts into the opening sequance where from now on there is no more titles, the only information we have is the batman symbol, this is so well known they havnt even put a title on it, and the fact that it is a dark screen and cold and dark colours it adds a spooky and mysterious effect to this, this is a verry interesting title sequance as not even the actors or any crew or film companie are named. this is a good example of how no text can be used and still the audiance can recognise the film, this shows how popular batman is and how many people relate that symbol to batman.