For my media product, I drew a lot of inspiration from other thrillers. My genre, being thrillers meant that there should be a lot of action, minimal dialogue and chasing. My product fits all of this criteria as we made the whole scene apart from after the antagonist gets shot a chase scene with very little dialogue apart from where the antagonist shouts at the protagonist.
The usual setting for a thriller is the city. For example, Batman: The Dark Knight(Nolan:2008) was set in the fictional city of Gotham which is a very built up area with many sky scrapers and a big population. My media product however takes place in a deserted field and forest in the country side. This is very atypical of a thriller. We decided to do this as it would be a lot easier to film as there wouldn't be people walking by a lot of the time, it fit the narrative as the protagonist is meant to be on the run, retreating to a remote part of the country.
During the filming of my product, I tried to use a lot of common camera angles such as the low angle shot of the floor and the feet of the characters as they run past the camera. I decided to use this after seeing Quantum of Solace(Forster:2008) where in the opening credits which is also a chase scene, once the antagonists are introduced and are chasing the protagonist's car, there is a shot of the road and the cars behind. This shot denoted the speed of the chase which made it look a lot more exciting.
Another thing that I did which wasn't typical of thriller films was during the credits. When the protagonist walked away after killing the antagonist, the pace of the film really slowed down and I used music to set the sad mood. I also used the low angle shot of the feet again, to contrast with the earlier shot of the chase to show how it had slowed down a lot more. This is very different compared to other thrillers as they are about being upbeat and fast. Crammed full of action and explosions leaving very little room for emotions to be shown.
My media product represents different social groups through editing, sound, mise-en-scene and cinematography. The protagonist played by Ed Brooker who is 17 years old is a man in his mid twenties on the road from an anonymous agency and the antagonist also played by Xiangyu Ge who is 16 year old where as his character is around the same as the protagonist.
The stereotypical mid twenties man is someone who has started working, just finished university, possibly moving into his first house. He is usually working or middle class, trying to work up the working ladder and achieve success. In our film, the protagonist doesn't any facial hair and is wearing a hoody. The protagonist in the narrative is trying to fit in with the crowd, dressing as a teenager to avoid the agency.
Xiangyu Ge portrays the agency like an anonymous business man. He wears a suit to show that he is from the agency however he uses glasses to hide his identity. He also does not wear a tie and wears his shirt un-tucked. This connotes that he doesn't care about being smart but is just there to do the job. In the film, we introduce the protagonist first as he leads the chase and bring in Xiangyu secondary as he comes around the corner to connote how he's trying to get the protagonist. This helps identify who is on the run and who is chasing.
Throughout the product there is many connotations of masculinity, the whole chase scene is about who is the fastest and strongest. At the start the antagonist is in control, being the one with the most power as he runs after the protagonist. There is also a single shot of the Antagonist by himself which is the only shot until he stops to get the gun out where the protagonist is not in the shot. This connotes that he is the more important one which is true until the gun switches hand.
I think that my film would be like a Hollywood blockbuster, a mostly no risk film that appeals to the mainstream. Possible institutions that would distribute this product would be the likes of Warner Bros. who distributed such films as Batman: The Dark Knight(Nolan:2008) and Inception(Nolan:2010) or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayerwho distributed Casino Royale(Campbell:2006). These institutions have produced many other thrillers and more specifically crime thrillers like my own.
However, there are many other types of distribution that isn't just through the cinema. The film could be watched on the internet using websites such as blip.tv or Youtube. Along with distributing, these websites could also be used for promotion and advertising my film. Youtube regularly advertise films and other products such as the iPod and Cars on their front page. Both these websites receive a huge amount of traffic every day with a huge variety in audience. Avatar(Cameron:2009) advertised on Youtube for a period of a month before the film was released and in that month the trailer that was hosted on Youtube received over a million views. Today this trailer has over three million views with the total upload views from every video that was posted from the official Avatar channel well over twenty three million.
After the film has been released, it would be released on DVD and then shown on TV too. Possible institutions for this would be ITV and SkyMovies. SkyMovies have a blockbuster feature where you can pay one off to see the film once it is scheduled. This happens simultaneously as the DVD is released as usually it would be a period of over 3 months before the film can be seen for free on the other SkyMovies channels.
For my media product, the majority of the audience would be mostly teenagers and people early in their twenties from age 15 to 25, mostly men too. The thriller genre is very popular with young people as it consists of a lot of action, chases and killing. My product is no exception from this as both of the characters get shot and the scene is a chase scene. I would think that my film would be rated as a 12 by the BBFC due to the killings, much like most other thrillers. The film would definitely appeal to the mainstream audience as the film is very much like other thrillers, sticking to most of the typical forms and conventions used in a thriller.
The audience of my film would be comparable to some films such as Batman: The Dark Knight(Nolan:2008) and Casino Royale(Campbell:2006). Both of these films are thrillers that appeal to the mainstream audience. Both of these films are similar to my film as well, use of props such as guns, many chase scenes and similar camera angles. The audience of these films are mainly male age 15-25, such as my film and both have the 12 certificate.
Sandy Lee, one of the participants in the interview.
To attract and address my audience, I initially asked them what they wanted. In an earlier blog, I posted the results of a series of interviews. We asked people that would be the potential audience for the film what they wanted to see from a crime thriller film. The response was very uniform, with most people stating that they would expect to see a complex and tense storyline, chases, guns, fight scenes and plot twists. With this knowledge in hand we knew exactly what we had to do to create a film that would appeal to the target audience. There was also a couple of things that the interviewees asked for such as car chases and gadgets but we ruled out these for the final product for a number of reasons, such as time constraints and overly complicating the production.
One of the interviewees, Jacob Stevenson, said he wanted to see "massive forest and a quiet forest." To address this, we decided film in a field in Clavering which had a wood surrounding it. This setting was not that typical of a thriller, usually in a city or a built up area. However we thought that this setting fit with the narrative of our film, with the main protagonist being on the run from an anonymous agency, pushed out of his usual way of life and forced to flee to the most remote places in the country. This also attracts the audience because it adds something new to the crime thriller genre, not the normal setting of a city. The opening shot also denotes a house in the background and a public footpath in the foreground connoting that the setting is actually very close to the people watching the film which relates to them, making them feel that they are more involved with the film.
Opening shot with the house in the background.
When we set out to make a chase scene, we wanted to make it look as fast as possible. To do this we used a lot of shots that lasted less than a section to build up speed right at the start as the agent makes his presence known to the protagonist. Doing this keeps the audience interested in the film with the fast start and then settling into a moderate pace of shots with low angle shots of the characters running to keep the pace up and then stopping everything together when the agent pulls out his gun. This changes the situation and stops the chase from dragging on, keeping the audience still engaged. We repeat this until the agent catches the protagonist, adding in different shots such as extreme long shots, medium and side on shots.
I attracted audience by using actors of similar age of the target audience. Xiangyu Ge who is 16 who plays the agent and Ed Brooker who is 17 who played the protagonist. The actual age of the characters is actually supposed to be around 20-25, for both the protagonist and the antagonist in this scene. This would also then appeal to the rest of the majority of the target audience.
For filming our project, we used a cannon digital video camera. The camera requires and SD card for storing the clips being filmed on in the process. This presented me with the problem that my particular SD card was only 512mb big which meant that it did not hold much film on it. This meant that I had to navigate through menus and delete bad takes out on location. This is something that I have not really ever needed to do before, but doing this, gave me much more experience with the camera.
When we edited our film, we used a Macintosh and a software package called Final Cut Express. Prior to this work, I had never used a Macintosh extensively or used Final Cut much, apart from in our preliminary task. Editing in final cut gave me a lot of experience with the Macintosh systems and I learned how to trim clips, use fades and slugs effectively, create titles and sync music and sound effects.
Screen cap of our final project opened in final cut.
Screen cap of the use of fades and titles, along with sound levels.
Screen cap of sound syncing with the gun shot.
Blogging is also a completely new thing to me. I’ve never had to organize a web page or add content to one before. For our early work I needed to add pictures and embed videos onto the blog. This was quite a challenge sometimes as I was embedding from http://www.youtube.com/ and not every video is able to be embedded as it can be disabled by the user. This meant I had to spend a lot of time finding suitable clips that I could embed. Posting images on the blog was also new, I knew how to but some images were drawn and written on in pencil, meaning that they did not show up properly. To get around this, I had to opening up the image in Macromedia fireworks and increase the contrast so that it was legible.
Overall I think that I have learnt a lot about the technologies used in film production but also in other areas of ICT in general. The use of Final Cut was essential in the production and without the knowledge that we gained a long the way of doing the final task, we wouldn't of been able to use many of the things that we did in the film such as sound syncing and slow motion.
Our preliminary task was a very basic challenge. It introduced us to editing on the Macs and using items such as our storyboard for filming purposing and using the cameras but it was very basic. Progressing from this, we built on our knowledge of the Macs and the editing software that was available and some of the tricks we could do with this, such as syncing up the gun sound effects and the music. We also learned how to create titles and fades which we ended up using effectively in our final project. One of the things that we though we did very well in our preliminary task was match on action shots. The part where Xiangyu Ge jumps over the chair and Ben Perry puts his hand up and then we change the shot from behind Xiangyu to behind Ben and the two parts matched very well.
This made it very easy for doing such things like the initial gun shot where the agent pulls out the gun, puts the magazine in, aims and then fires.
Some things that we did not have to do in the preliminary task was think about different social groups. The preliminary task was just two teenagers walking into a room, sitting down and exchanging dialogue where as our final project is an opening to a feature fiction film. When we made our preliminary task, there was a particular transition where the shot changes only very slightly from looking at one actor to an over the shoulder still looking at the same character.
These two shots are 1 second apart. Me and Seb weren't happy with this shot and made sure that when we made our final task, we didn't make small mistakes like this that could make it look less than satisfactory at times.
Overall I think that I have learnt many new things and also built on a lot of previous knowledge that I gained from doing the preliminary task. Doing the preliminary task and reflecting back on it helped me a lot to see what I didn't want to do right and left out completely, highlighting mistakes that I really shouldn't of made in the first place. I feel that it helped me make the right decisions in the final project that I wouldn't of done otherwise.
Me and Seb have now competed our two minute opening to a fiction film, in time for the deadline. The editing was complete on the 17th of February. Overall, I am happy with the product that we have produced. We didn't follow the storyboard as much as we could have done but we included every shot that we put in there, and some more. I particularly happy with the speed of the chase scene that we accomplished. It's very easy to make the chase scene seem very slow but that was not the case with ours. I'm also pleased with the variety of shots we included, from low angles and close ups of the feet running to over the shoulder and then extremely long shots. What I think we could of improved is the overall production quality. We included all the sound for the gun shots but we intended to have blood splatter and muzzle flash. After further research into muzzle flash, we found that it would most likely not be seen in the day time so we abandoned that idea. However, with the time constraints that we had and the programs we had to use to edit; which we were completely new to, restricted our ability for this. In conclusion, I'm very pleased with what we have done but some small things could have made it look so much better.
We will also be using another track from http://derekaudette.ottawaarts.com/music.php. This piece, "Toxic Shock", will be used during the chase scene. The song is a fast paced track with heavy drums and midi guitar.
To make sure we make the right product for the right audience, me and Seb set out to ask people what they expect from a Crime-thriller.
Sandy Lee
Sandy said that he expects a crime thriller to be "Exciting, tense, clever and the hero near death at some point". He also said that there should be "guns and a murder weapon" for props.
Joshua Vicary
Josh said he expects a crime thriller to be "Tense, good plot, death, hot ladies, mysterious". He said for props there should be "Guns, Gadgets and cars"
Jacob Stevenson
Jacob said he expects there to be "A girl crying in the woods, a male killer, a twisted and complicated plot, strangles, massive forest and a quiet forest."
Tom Thorp
Tom said that there should be "Humor, entertaining, action, back stories of characters, violence and drama".
Adam Low
Adam said that there should be "Fight scenes, action, violence, cars and chases".
From this we can see that the audience expects there to be violence, action, guns, cars, and chases. However we do not have access to a car but we can do all of the other things.
For our two minute opening, the props we need is one gun for the agent. Apart from that, all we require is the costumes. For our protagonist, we use will put him in casual cloths, as he the narrative of the story tells he is trying to blend in with the crowds and look normal. For our antagonist, the agent, we will use a suit. The suit will be black and white with sunglasses to hide his identity and be anonymous.
The location for mine and Seb's media 2 minute opening to a fiction film will be set in a field and an alley way in Clavering, 8 miles from Saffron Walden.
This is mine and Seb's narrative struture to our two minute opening to a fiction film.
Our film is about a middle age man, ex-government operative on the run from an anonymous agency. The agency have killed his family and are after him, chasing him wherever he roams until one day they get him where they want.
This is where our two minute opening starts, as he is being chased through a field in the middle of the country side.
For further investigation into title sequences I looked at another crime thriller, Se7en(Fincher:1995) on the art of the title. This opening title sequence isn't very action packed but it plays on the senses of the audience. It scares people by showing small amounts of gore and displaying the motives and other reasoning behind the serial killer. The title scene on its own is an example of an exceptionally good title sequence but it would be extremely hard for we as media students to film and edit in such a small period of time.
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/03/26/se7en/
Me and Seb analysed the title sequence of Casino Royale to determine the timings of the titles and the order in which they appear. We only used the first two minutes and stopped there as our film is constrained to two minutes including titles where this title sequence lasts a whole three minutes.
0:05 - Production Company
0:08 - Actor - lead role
0:11 - Original Writer of the series
0:15 - Film title
0:19 - 0:54 - Actors and stuntmen
0:58 - Associate produce, Production Executive
1:02 - Camera Operator, Assistant Director, Script Supervisor, Publicity and Marketing, Promoting, Assistant Producer
1:10 - Sound Recorder, Electrical Supervisor, Stills Photographer, Makeup Supervisor, Hairdressing Supervisor, Wardrobe Supervisor
1:17 - Visual Effects, Supervising Art Director, Property, Construction Manager, Post Production Supervisor
1:24 - Unit Production Manager, Second Unit Production Manager, First Assistant Director
1:30 - Casting, Stunt Co-ordinator
1:33 - Special and Miniature Effects Supervisor, Main Title Designer
1:37 - Second Unit Director
1:41 - Costume Designer
1:55 - Editor
Doing this has helped us understand the importance of the titles and the order in which they are included. This has also shown us what to include and what not to include, for example including things such as the actors names earlier rather than later, the title being extremely close to the start but not the first thing seen with the production company being first.
Me and Seb have decided upon creating a crime-thriller for our two minute opening to a fiction film. We chose this because it's not as complicated as a science fiction but it still offers all of the action. We decided to do a crime-thriller, rather than a thriller because it allows us to include more down to earth characters and narrative, rather than a very complicated plot.
The genre I chose was thriller/crime hybrid, with focus on a very fast paced action packed opening. The first film I chose was Batman: The Dark Knight(Nolan:2008). I chose this because this film utilizes every element of film making very well. The mise-en-scene consists of the masks on the characters, which create a very intimidating set of characters, there was a lot of ambient sound used to keep the momentum and the pace of the sequence up, it was edited to show how much was going on and how each of the clowns were being killed one by one and the cinematography never shows us the faces of the people behind the masks, which makes them even more intimidating.
The next film I chose was James Bond Casino Royale(Campbell:2006). This opening does not feature anything but animated scenes along with a song, sort of like a music video. The sequence shows no narrative but the cinematography shows off many different great shots for a crime/thriller, mainly the fighting and death shots. This scene also shows how music can be so effective at making everything seem so much faster paced and how it creates a narrative itself with the intro/verse/chorus/outro.
The last film I chose was Reservoir Dogs(Tarantino:1992). The opening scene from this film shows the characters walking together under the soundtrack. This sequence is a prime example of the use of cinematography to show the characters, their personalities and the relationships between each other by the use of close-ups of each of their faces and the group shots of all of them. Unfortunately I could not find a clip that I could embed.
The usual setting for a thriller is the city. For example, Batman: The Dark Knight(Nolan:2008) was set in the fictional city of Gotham which is a very built up area with many sky scrapers and a big population. My media product however takes place in a deserted field and forest in the country side. This is very atypical of a thriller. We decided to do this as it would be a lot easier to film as there wouldn't be people walking by a lot of the time, it fit the narrative as the protagonist is meant to be on the run, retreating to a remote part of the country.
During the filming of my product, I tried to use a lot of common camera angles such as the low angle shot of the floor and the feet of the characters as they run past the camera. I decided to use this after seeing Quantum of Solace(Forster:2008) where in the opening credits which is also a chase scene, once the antagonists are introduced and are chasing the protagonist's car, there is a shot of the road and the cars behind. This shot denoted the speed of the chase which made it look a lot more exciting. 
Another thing that I did which wasn't typical of thriller films was during the credits. When the protagonist walked away after killing the antagonist, the pace of the film really slowed down and I used music to set the sad mood. I also used the low angle shot of the feet again, to contrast with the earlier shot of the chase to show how it had slowed down a lot more. This is very different compared to other thrillers as they are about being upbeat and fast. Crammed full of action and explosions leaving very little room for emotions to be shown.
