Final Thriller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00vMjVPWQW8

Introduction to evaluation

For my coursework I was set the task of creating an opening sequence for a thriller film, therefore I had to research and plan different conventions and effects used within the thriller genre. Within my group there was myself, who had the role of director and producer, Tom Tovey, who was allocated as an actor and editor and finally Scott Arbuckle, who was cameraman. As director and producer I was responsible for the settings, filming schedule, positioning of the actors within scenes and has the final say in the editing stage. From my experience of this I had learnt how to give out directions and constructive criticism in order to improve and create a successful piece of work.

I believe my group did work very well together during the planning and filming stages we each contributed ideas, which we agreed would to use within our opening sequence. However when it came down to the editing stage, there was quite a lot of conflict as we disagreed on several choices in terms of the sound effects and editing pace. Although we disagreed it benefited us in the long term because we had decided to compromise and combine the ideas, which created a better effect within our opening sequence. Even though there were many sections we could have further improved if we were given more time and expertise.

 I believe my opening sequence has been successful, because it included many features and conventions of a thriller e.g. enigma, low key lighting, death and many more other effects.

Question 6

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

Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Thriller comparison - Miss Georgiou

I believe my opening sequence of a thriller was successful in most areas, for example our opening sequence used low key lighting effectively to create suspense for the audience watching. I believe because we knew the features needed to make a successful thriller, therefore made appropriate and effective choices. Most of creativity was shown through the element of cinematography, this is because we made many brave choices which were risky in taking as they subverted from the conventional thriller camera angles. For example when the killer is at the end of the alley and it is a long shot in which not much of the character is easy to see.

There are many micro elements in which aspects of our opening sequence can be compared to, however I can compare my thriller to any successful existing one and still prove that my thriller is conventional.

Psycho

Psycho is a very successful and important film within the thriller genre, it was an Alfred Hitchcock movie that was released within the 1960's and now ranked one of the greatest films of all time.

• The narrative involves a deranged character who becomes two personalities, he then kills other characters because of hes unstable state of mind. This is similar to my narrative as the killer within my thriller is deranged and is a lot not in a stable state of mind as he chooses to kill an innocent character within the clip. This narrative is proved to be successful and therefore I believe is a sensible choice to have made.

• The editing withing Psycho is very simplistic however this is due to the lack of development within the production stages and technology at the time period the film was created. Therefore my thriller has used slightly more advanced editing although we did not include too much as we did not want to distract the audience from the realistic storyline.

• The setting within Psycho varies within different scene however the main setting is at the hotel of the killer, which is in the middle of a derelict area. This is slightly similar to the setting I used within my thriller as it takes place down an empty alley and an overgrown forest, I believe this is a sensible choice to have made for my thriller. This is because it creates alot of suspense for the audience as they build up the instinct that the victims will not survive due to there being nobody around to save them.

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Target audience feedback - Miss Georgiou

Audience feedback is important within a production, because it helps people make changes based on what their specific audience wants. With the criticisms and positive comments, the material can be altered to fufill the pleasures of the target audience, this will help make a much better and appropriate sequence.We collected our audience feedback through our media class, as they are within the age range of ourn target audience, we played our rough copy to them and handed out feedback sheets for them to fill in. Within the sheet, there was questions on how effective and pleasureable certain features of the film were. This then helped us make changes within our opening sequence to make it more successful in fitting the criteria and following the conventions of the thriller genre.

Constructive comments made by other groups

• Narrative - One of the comments made by the other group was to make the narrative of our thriller clearer, this is because the target audience found that our narrative was not clear enough for them top understand.
• More sound effects - The audience found there was not a wider range of sound effects and found that the ones that are there did not have a great impact on them, feeling that the sound effects should be used for more effect.
• Improved lighting - The other comment we recieved was that the lighting in the final scene was too dark, meaning
  

  that they couldn't see clearly what was happening in the final scene.

  How we overcame these comments

  
  
• Narrative - We overcame the narrative problem by adding extra clips to the sequence, this gave the audience more to watch and to help them understand the narrative.
• More sound effects - We overcame this problem by finding more suitable sound effects, especially ones to use during the chase scene as this intensifies the clip which means it would have a greater effect on the audience.
• Improved lighting - We overcame this problem by going out and filming the sequence again at an earlier time, this
  

  meant there was more sunlight which made the scene alot clearer, during this time we was able to make improvements the actual narrative of the sequence.