Planning

Throughout the planning process we went through many ideas and scripts and changed the premise of the actual final Thriller opening a number of times.

We had first planned for the Thriller to have up to 4-5 people in the opening and it was going to be last around 3 minutes we were going to have a Foot Chase which made it into the final opening all though changed. But there was also going to be an assassination scene but it would cut to some back story of why it is happening but this was cut from the final idea because it would have made the opening to long. This was the piece we planned on doing before the Thriller opening we produced.

 

Cast

• Alex Jurkiewcz - Bullock - Director
• Tom Woodward - Michael
• Aaron Mace - Frank
• Callum Woodward - Pike

Characters
Michael - An unconventional private investigator who tries to get any case solved by any means necessary. He is driven by the his hatred and injustice of the world. He is the embodiment of an anti-hero and a suppressor of wrong doings in the world which this is the element of his character that anyone has around the world. In the film is playing a game of cat and mouse with a mobster who keeps getting away every time Michael catches him.

Frank - Is the opposite the Michael the antagonist the yin of Michaels yang. He is dressed in casual clothing and speaks with a slight mocking town towards people. He is a mobster that infiltrates organisations to rise through the ranks to gain power to feed his yearning for psychologically beating and torturing his enemies. Frank is a dishonourable villain but ultimately good at it which should be the main focus of any antagonist. To the audience Frank will appear riddled with an unnerving possession of psychological power and mystery.

Pike - Pike is Franks hired assassin who is physical and a logical mind. He is a sharp shooting assassin who is the muscle behind a lot of Franks and doesn't  mind getting his hands dirty he doesn't think twice when he has to kill someone. He has an unquestionable loyalty to frank with no emotion and is an expert in hand to hand combat and a talented marksman he puts these to good use in helping Frank rise to the top of his organisations he infiltrates.

 

Props/Equipment

 

A big part of the filming process and planning is knowing what props that are needed for when you are filming on location these are the props we used.

 

Props list:

• Nexus 5
• Tripod
• Builders Flood Light
• 9mm Berretta BB gun
• BB Gun

For the camera we used a Nexus 5 this is because the camera quality on it is good with it being filming at 1080p but also has great colour reproduction with built in image stabilisation to reduce shaking and also because we didn't have enough money to buy a camera specifically for the Thriller opening.

 





We used a tripod for when the camera was stationary such as in the dialogue scenes during the interrogation this was so the camera was steady and there wasn't any shaking that the viewers would notice.

 

We used a builders flood light in the interrogation scene on Frank the person being interrogated to stretch out his shadow to make him look like a dark person but to also cliché with the bright light being shone in someone's face during an interrogation scene.

 

 

Thriller Opening - Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
With the Thriller opening we tried to use conventions used in popular thrillers and incorporate them into our on Thriller to try and and emulate the look and feel of the thriller genre. One of the conventions we used was that we tried to show Frank the person being the interrogated as a darker character than Michael the private Investigator. We tried to achieve this by first using lighting we used a Construction site lamp and shone it at Frank during the interrogation scene so that it cast a large dark shadow behind him to try and emphasis the fact that he is the antagonist in this Thriller. We also tried to do this with the way he sounded and the gestures he made for example he was lower down in his chair slouching with his arms crossed showing someone that doesn't care and is confident in themselves. The protagonist Michael is shown to be In a much better position than Michael being a lot more confident and also shown to have more power than him this helps show Michael as being the good guy but also being over confident in himself and eventually something bad might happen to him which is the case in a lot of action/thrillers  with the protagonist being in a good position compared to the antagonist but gets flipped around so the protagonist is in danger.
We went with a younger looking cast for the Thriller this is because younger people are usually portrayed to be associated with gangs and more violent than someone in a older age group.
We used a lot of tension build up throughout the Thriller opening because this is one of the main conventions in a thriller, we attempted to do this through using fast cutting with Michael and Frank and the Assassin Pike while Michael thought he was safe from anything Frank could send after him we kept cutting to Pike showing someone searching for Michael and to save Frank showing that he is in peril without him knowing, this was also emphasised with the music being used being slow and ominous helping build up the tension throughout the opening and towards the end starting to speed up as it get more into the action and faster cutting helping to ease the tension.

 How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My Thriller opening isn't aimed at any particular social groups but you could get but it could represent a type of gang culture so around low-to middle class. You get this from the way the characters are dressed and the way the speak to each other for example Frank the person being interrogated is portrayed as a middle class person from his clothing being much more casual than Michaels it is also clean but not smart looking and not brand named and also with him being a gang cultured person.But Michael the investigator could be seen as a more upper-class person by him wearing a blazer and the position he is in compared to Frank
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why
With the film being produced on a very small budget and with equipment that costs almost nothing compared to equipment used in films such as the hobbit that have a huge audience. I would go with if I had the budget working title or working title 2 this is because they are a British based film company with a extremely good reputation from films they have produced such as Billy Elliot but another reason for that is they are vertically integrated with universal studios for distribution of there films giving us a global audience that the film could be distributed to. But with us having next to no budget and being independent I would look to distribute my film threw film festivals,independent cinemas and art houses.

Who would be the audience for your media product
The audience for this media product would be aimed at around people aged 15+ this is because of the way it fits into the BBFC certification rating to with violence and strong language. I came to this certification because of the content of deadly weapons which are shown in violent scenes but also because of the use of strong language in scenes throughout the film. Because of the 15+ rating it has a large audience to view the film maximizing profits for the film and the genre fits in with people around that age with it being an action orientated thriller but also this effects the audience by gender because it would be more appealing for men to watch with it being a action/thriller rather than it being something like a romance that would be more aimed towards woman. If I had rated the film at an 18 this would effect the viewing audience greatly effecting profit from the film because it is limiting it to a smaller audience and younger generation tend to go to the cinema more
How did you attract/address your audience
If I didn't have a small budget I would have tried to get a big audience for my Thriller by using effective but expensive means of advertisement such as Billboards,Tv adverts,Magazine adverts and trailers to be shown before videos at the cinema or on a dvd before you get to the film. This would have helped me get my Thriller to a wider audience which should make the film have a larger revenue but also doing this can have an effect if the movie is a failure because it would get the more publicity because it is a well known film for the advertisement.

As our Thriller is aimed at audience 15+ we would have used social networking such as twitter,tumblr,facebook or even open forums such as reddit.But instead we chose to use YouTube to distribute the opening to our thriller we did this because it is a widely known internet source for trailers with millions of viewers around the globe visiting it every day. This would also not effect our budget in a negative way because YouTube is a free uploading video site but it could have had a positive effect on our budget because the more people that watch the video the more money we get from adverts shown before the trailer helping us to create a bigger budget movie

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product
Through the production of our Continuity piece and Thriller opening I have learnt more effective ways of filming and editing. I have learn that equipment can affect the look and feel of the film for example we filmed the continuity piece and thriller opening using a nexus 5 which is phone it recorded in 1080p at 30frames a second which records a decent quality film for a phone but we had problems trying to get close ups because it had no macro setting if we had a DSLR camera such as a Canon 550D we could have had that flexibility with using interchangeable lenses giving us a macro setting but also with a camera it doesn't matter about the megapixels its more of the lenses and sensor being used within the camera that is why a lot of professionals have expensive cameras but a good quality lens can actually cost more than the camera but we could not do this because we didn't have a big enough budget to actually buy a DSLR. Another important thing I have learnt while filming our Thriller opening is to do with zooming on cameras, a lot of cameras promise to have a 10x digital zoom which you may think is good but for filming this is a bad thing for a camera to have this is because digital zoom actually zooms in using software to enhance and zoom in the picture this degrades the picture quality by blurring out colours and enlarging pixels, the way we learnt to get round this was to use a camera that used optical zoom rather than digital because instead of using software to zoom in it uses a hardware based system with lenses magnifying what you are filming but keeping the same picture quality.

We chose to edit the Thriller opening on a windows based platform this is because we knew that operating system the best and felt more comfortable using it even though we had MacBook's at are disposal and are known more for media production and already had IMovie on them. When editing or trying to learn new filming techniques I have been using YouTube and video a lot because they have many people on them that post videos teaching tips on editing or filming such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xTZtgApuDI this video tells you how to colour grade your film scenes in post production so you can get the lighting and colours the same between each scene.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you fell you have learnt in progression to the final product?

Throughout the process of making this I think the main thing I have learnt is how hard it is to actually make a film that is longer than a minute or so. We planned it for about a month but the filming process took a lot long than we thought it would because of all the scenes that we have to film because of the cutting but also with conditions such as changing in lighting for when we were filming outside and when everyone could get together to film. Making this has shown me how long it takes to make a full production movie that are shown at the cinema.

I think the main thing I have learnt between the preliminary task and the final piece is camera work, such as angles, moving shots and lighting. In the Final piece we tried to use as many varied shot as possible for example when Pike the assassin was moving down the corridor we used a dolly shot which was someone sitting on a office chair while someone pulled them and Pike moving forward so that we could keep the same distance between the Actor and the camera while making sure its a smooth as possible. Another big one was lighting we tried to add extra emphasis on objects or people using lighting from a lamp this was done in the interrogation scene with Frank with a light pointing at his face which is common in interrogation scenes but also helps show what kind of character he is.

We also learnt about the editing, when in a dialogue scene you don't want to be taking loads of different shots in that same dialogue because it can be jarring and confusing to the viewer so you want to try and make the shots as long as possible. But when an action scene is happening you want to try and make the shot cutting faster pace but not confusing. One of the other things we learnt from the editing was it always good to leave time before the scene happens and after the scene so the person editing it can choose the best place to start the scene from and so you don't accidently start the shot when the actors are already doing something and not to end it cutting off anything important.