Reviews of our Media Thriller

We asked for a number of reviews off viewers to find out what they thought of our final media product.

Chloe Cannon:

What do you think the basic plot of the thriller is?
A man wanting to kill a rich man, revenge maybe.

What do you think are the key strengths of this thriller and why?
The special effects and sound effects were effective.

How do you think this thriller could be made even more effective and why?
The music didn't quite match at certain points.

Chloe understood the story and plot we were trying to convey to the audience, she understood the main character was after a rich man and i think the location of the scene helped show that. In her opinion the special effects and sound effects worked well, when we were editing we knew that the special effects and sound effects would need to be good and effective to make our thriller successful. In her opinion the sound effects didnt match to what was happening on the screen. She has a good point, we wanted to sychronise the music with the action on the screen but we found it difficult to do this all the time and perfectly.

Vicky Cooper:

What do you think the basic plot of this thriller is?
Someone trying to shoot everyone to get to the main bad guy.

What do you think are the key strengths of this thriller and why?
The noises of the guns with sparks flying by worked well together.

Vicky also understood the plot and story we were trying to convey, I think this is a good sign with our thriller that we have successfully made a thriller because they understrand the story. Vicky thought that the gun sounds and sparks worked the best, we wanted to really create an impact on the audience by having a thunderous sound from the guns to shock the audience and put them on edge.

Sola:

What do you think the basic plot of the thriller is?
An agent sneaking into a big rich house.

What do you think are the key strengths of this thriller and why?
Good sound effects.

Sola understands the majority of the stroy that a man is sneaking into a rich mans house, this shows that the location of the thriller was key in portraying the stroy successfully.  Sola also thinks that the sound effects worked well, again we wanted to thrill the audience and we decided to emphasise the gun shots because they would have the most impact on the audience.

Lisa Ievtukhova:

What do you think the basic plot of this thriller is?
Storyy about killers. Who were trying to kill the owner of the house, but stuck with each other and had to fight.

What do you think are the key strengths of this thriller and why?
Very nice sound effects. Editing is very good.

How do you think this could be made even more effective and why?
More obvious feelings from characters.

Lisa sadly didnt fully grasp the plot of the thriller, we wanted to concentrate on one man, not on lots of people, we wanted to portray some of the characters as gaurds to the big house, we obviously could have made it clearer that it is one man against all the guards to get to one man. Lisa agrees that the sound and editing was very good, she says that she wanted to know the characters better, we agree with this, since we only get 2 minutes of sequence but we wanted to convey a character better in our thriller so that the audience side with that character and make an emotional connection, which therefore makes a better thriller and causes a greater impact on the audience.

Bertie Chatfield:

What do you think are the key strengths of this thriller and why?
Corrupt man being targeted by hitman.

What do you think are the key strengths of this thriller and why?
Good SFX and good non diegetic sound.

How do you think this thriller could be made even more effective and why?
Confused by the name.

Bertie understood the plot and story perfectly, which means we have conveyed the plot and story succesfully. Bertie also says that the sound effects were used well, i think that the sound effects were a key part to our thriller and we used them effectively. Bertis commented that he is confused by the title of the thriller, I agree that the title is not obvious of its meaning and i agree that it isnt the best title for the thriller but the subtext of the title gives a further depth of meaning to the thriller sequence.

What I Have Learnt About the Techonologies from the Process of Contstructing this Product

The Progression from the Preliminary to the Final Product

A lot more time went into the organising os the final product compared to the preliminary task, the main task was much more complicated and detailed compared to the preliminary task. On the shoot day there was much more organising needed for the shoot day to run smoothly for the main task compared to the preliminary task where we just picked any actors we could find, we used the set which was already there which wqasnt ours and we didnt write the script, and we werre given a storyboard as the main task we had to make all of these ourselves which meant much more time and care was out into the main task compared to the preliminary task.

Looking at the differance from the prlim task and our main task it is obvious that i have improved in my film making skills, you could also see that my editing skill had improved too. I also noticed that we used no dialogue in our main task but in the prlim task we did and yet the sequence with no dialogue was the most entertaining and effective in being a successful thriller.

We also used much more interesting camera shots in the main task compared to the prelim task where we used only stationairy camera shots for instance we used many hand held shots in the main task as we used the tripod for every shot in the prelim task. Using the hand held camera shot it makes the shot much more interesting and differant, it also makes the scene more thrilling because it moves with the action as the tripod makes the shot very still and slow. The prlim task was a much slower pace sequence than the main task which i think provs that we have learnt as being a film maker since we have made a more successful and effective thriller in just a few months. During the prelim task we were very careful with our shots such as the 180 degree rule, as when we were filming the main thriller task it was much more natural and we were much quicker in successfully recording differant camera shots.

In the prelim task we used only the dialogue as sound as the sound in the main task we edited and put in sounds such as gun shots, we also used ambient sounds to create atmosphere and tension which were absent in the prelim task.

In the final product we used lots of special effects such as gun flashes and sounds weere also edited in which added more detail and depth to the thriller sequence, we really demonstrated our knowledge and abilty of final cut pro and after effects in the main thriller task as in the prelim we had much less knowledge which is why there is very little editing and no after effects. It proves that we have progressed from the prelim task to the main thriller sequence.

The mis-en-scene was differant too, in the prelim task there was no mise-en-scene at all, they were in there own clothes, we used any room we could find and we picked any characters we could find at that time of day. As in our main task we took more time in deciding the mise-en-scene of the thriller, we chose specific characters weeks in advance, we also chose the location of the sequence carefully too so that it would give further indications of the plot, the characters and it also develops the believability of the sequence. We took more consideration into what the characters wore too, the costumes tell the audience what the character is like and it shows implications to the characters personaility and personna.

We also used much better camera shots in our main task than our prelim task, in our prelim the shots didn't have much meaning but in our main task the camera shots were used much more effectively, which had meaning unlike our prelim.

How Did our Thriller Attract the Audience

How Did Our Thriller Attract Our Audience

Who Would be the Audience for my Media Product

This picture shows who would be our main target audience, he is a young male adult, he is neither rich or poor, a standard education, we are aiming towards a mainstream target audience but a younger male audience. He most likely plays video games involving violence and enjoys watching similar films as these video games which is why he is our main target audience because this age group has the most interest in the content of my media thriller sequence. By knowing who is our target audience we can see our film more directly ie. Facebook or in magazines which is aimed to a younger age group. This man also has tattoos implying he might like heavy metal music which is an aggressive genre of music, ands this might attract him to watch our film because it is an aggressive violent film. An older man or woman wouldnt be attracted to watch my thriller because they do not typically watch thrillers, they are stereotypically not interested in the genre of film. He is also a male and this is our main target audience because males are more interested in violent film similar to mine.


Our film would appeal mainly to 15 to 24 year olds as they are main viewers of this type of genre of film. Our film would primarily target a niche British audience but because it deals with issues affecting the globe e.g bankers and financial ruin it would hopefully find an audience in other countries as well. Obviously this would be determined by the distribution of the film.Primarily our audience would be male but a secondary audience would be women who may be attracted by our handsome male lead. In the same way that George Clooney can be seen as a good actor and also a sex symbol to a female audience so our lead would be the same. Another audience who would be attracted to our film would be the over 25's who have directly been affected by the recession and the banking industry that may have caused this. As our film deals with social issues and topical news in today's society this would have resonance with our audience and providing we could get good reviews and word of mouth about our film we feel an older audience would also be attracted to it for these reasons. The action sequence s would definitely target a male audience who like video games, action films and films with fighting involved therefore we may well use these elements in our advertising as a way of deliberatly targeting this audience. To successfully target a female audience we may well use the attraction of the male lead on the posters as he will attract girls to watch the film.

Which Media Institution Would Distribute My Thriller

Since my thriller is a small budget film Vertigo Films would be the ideal company to distribute my thriller becasue they specialise in similar films to mine for instance the film Pusher and Monsters, they will distribute around the country, by keeping costs lowthey wont use the thrilelr in the cinema and instead go straight to DVD, they would also use other media convergances such as they used Xbox Live to reach a global audience for the film Monsters. Mnay of the films that Vertigo Films distirbute are simialr to my thirller which helps because they specialise in thrillers which means they know how to distribute the thriller effectively while keeping costs as low as possible. Since they are also a small company they would b interested in my thriller becuase it is a small budget film which they specialise in and have experience working with. Wanrer Bros wouldnt distribute our film because it appeals to a niche market and it is also a small budget film, since Warnere Bros only work in high concept films such as The Dark Knight. Times Warner have many differant subsidories which cover both production, distribution and exhibition of a film. They also own 20th century Fox which works with smaller budget films but they are still aimed to a global audience, as my thriller is aimed to a niche audience in Britain, it may have aspects which attract a global audience but it does not have the budget to distribute globally to a large global audience. Other British film companies such as Warp Films which made This is England may also be attracted to distribute my thriller because they also distribute smaller niche audience films, but they dont specialise in thirllers like Vertigo do.

I think Vertigo films would be the perfect film company to distribute my thriller becasue they are experience in my genre of film, they specialise in smaller niche audience films and they can also distribute globally by selling the rights to the film like they did with the film Monsters which then got distributed to America by selling the rights of the film to Magnolia Films.

How Does Our Thriller Represent Particuler Social Groups

Our thriller has a target audience of young male adults such as 25 year olds to teenagers of the minimum age of 15,  the reason is because our thriller is violent with lots of blood, which could be similar to a few video games played by people this age. It is also simmilar to other films which would attract the same age group.


 This picture is of the older generation, and this social group
wouldnt be attracted to my audience because they typically do not want to watch violent films with blood and violence, they also do not play similar games or watch films which are similar to our thriller sequence.


 This image represents the younger generation of socail groups, this gorup of people would be much more attracted to my thriller because they are younger and more into violent films which contain guns and gore. This maybe through video games or similar films such as the Expendables. The Media has made these stereotypical groups which help make my decision for attracting a young male audience.

How our Thriller Sequence uses Conventions and Challenges Forms in a Thriller

At the start of films, the name of the companies are shown. We came up with the name "Crowe Productions". We used this name because we thought it linked/related well with our Thriller. At this point, it also doesn't show that it is a Thriller so it isn't give anyting away which creates tension and suspense.

This also doesn't give anything away which creates suspense which is expected in a Thriller. This subverts the audiences expectations as they are still unsure as to what the film is about.

This is expected to be seen in a thriller as most people thrillers have an antagonist. This also conforms to the audiences expectations as this shot shows the thriller is about violence. It also doesn't show much of the surrounding environment which builds tension.

This is a shot of the antagonist climbing through the window. This creates mystery and builds suspense.

This shot shows that this film is about violence which is expected in a thriller. However it isn't clear who the antagonist is and what/why it is happening which doesn't give too much away.

This shows violence and who the antagonist is which conforms to the audiences expectations, violence is expected to be seen in thrillers like James Bond etc. This shot shows that the film contains an antagonist but doesn't give away the whole story.

This shows the violence which shows that the film contains fighting/violence which conforms to the audiences expectations.

This shot shows that our thriller contains violence and subverts the audiences expectations as to how it ends. It also shows that there is more than one antagonist. This shot uses conventions of real media products and also upholds the conventions of thriller film sequences.

Editing Task

We had an overall around 50 differant shots to use in out editing but we discarded around half of them due to errors which we found such as the camera not being stable or we notice an error such as someones foot entering the shot, some were also simillar to others which we discarded because they weren't quite as effective as the other ones. Our Thriller followed the conventions of a thriller because we had a twist in it, we had action and violence but we wanted to keep the audience guewssing what will happen and i think we capture this well especially at the end due to the change in pace and scene. We also wanted the audience to be on the edge of their seats we did this by having a mix of fast pace and slow pace scenes for instance the beginning is slow and it builds up to fast pace shots when the characters fight, we did this so it helps intensify the sequence.

We had to keep the sequence flowing smoothly and by using differant editing techniques to keep the continuity for the sequence, we did this by using a shot reverse shot for example when we have the fight scene half way through the sequence, we had to do this because it shows the characters point of view and by using shot reverse shot it helps the audience configure to what is happening and what the character is aiming their gun at. We also use a black out at the end of the sequence to intensify the audience because you cannot see what is happening therefor leaving a mystery and making the audience ask questions of our sequence, which is what we wanted to create before we had the shoot day.

Our film needed to be fast pace because of the fight scenes we have through the sequence, without the fast pace editing the sequence would be boring and therefore we do not reach our primary objective which was to thrill the audience, fight scenes wont have the same effect if they are slow, which makes the editing even more important. it was difficult especially the gun fight because we had to make it extremely fast and it also had a lot of detail to be added into the scene while having very short shots inbetween. With fast shots we had to add in sound and muzzle flashes which took time but it successfully thrills the audience and its reinforces the fast pace sequence. The fast pace of that specific scene is a contrast to the last scene where the main character puts on the silencer, this scene is slow but it still creates impact because it creates tension and builds up to the climax of the thriller sequence.

In our thriller we needed to make the main character the good guy, we wanted the audience to choose sides with him, and by doing this we needed to give him the most camera time to emphasise his importance and role in the story, the audience may not 'like' the character but we want the audience to choose the side with him, also without this the audience wont surrport this character and there fore the plot wont make sense and it wont nearly be as thrilling for the audience themselves. Making this character appear stronger, to make him appear the hero not the villain which could easily be mixed up, the character was killing people which is morally wrong but using camera time we were able to make the character still appear to be good not bad.

We needed to emphasise the gun shots so that they shock the audience and thrill them. This took time because the sequence is full of gun fights. By emphasising the gun shots it intensifies the thriller aspect of the sequence because we know guns can kill people and due to siding with the main character we do not want him to die, so by exaggerating the gun shots it alsmost puts the character in more danger. It wasnt easy to make every shot differant but it increases the thriller aspect of the video incredibly. We also used sounds to build a climax for instance when the main character enters the house we use a build up of music to intensify the scene and it makes the scene much more thrilling.

I found the editing process enjoyable but challenging, it takes time and patience, i finalises the seqeucne but it changes tiny details which took lots of time to make, editing has much more importance than I first thought, but it changes a sequence which is satisfactory and makes it into an effective piece of film. For instance the gun fights took the most time because they were the most detailed but when they were finished they look much better than without the editing. The editing had great importance for changing our thriller into a much better and more convincing sequence.

I enjoyed the editing process, it was frustrating at times because it took a lot of time to do, and you would have little changes even when you spend hours editing, but the fine details have made an massive improvement on the thriller sequence and i think through the hard work it has really paid off.

I think I played a large part in the editing process we were much more organised than our shoot day, we allocated times together and found time alone to help develop the video, i think as a group we were effective im helping contribute ideas and mke the sequence as best asd possible, the editing i found without it wouldnt have made the thriller as effective and im glad I played a big part in the editing, on our own we were able to tidy up any mistakes and as a group we made the big decisions and edited the more difficult time consuming tasks such as the gun shots, and layering the sounds. As a group we were most effective but on our own we got the tasks done to a certain standard which the other two members would be happy with, i think the editing really made this seqeuence the best it could be, and im happy that I played a large role in the editing.

Looking back at the prelininary I think my skills and knowledge of editing as increased dramatically, i found the thriller sequence much more challenging but it looks much better than the preliminary tasks, with the muzzle shots and sounds added in the thriller seqeuence looks much better and the preliminary task didnt have any music or edited sounds added in. The preliminary task had very basic, simple editing and looking at the editing of the thriller sequence which is much more complicated which is why the thriller sequence looks much better.

I feel that I have learnt much about the production of films and I feel a greater understanding of film production and the about of time and money which is spent of the editing alone and also the filming. I have also learnt that therew is much more detail in films than I first thought such as continuity which we found challenging due to tiny details which change shot. I also feel that editing has a much greater importance in films than I first thought, it can change an average film into a good film just by sound effects and computer effects such as muzzle flashes like our sequence.