Thriller Media Project Evaluation.
Our task was to make an opening sequence to a thriller film; we had to secure the interest of the audience in this opening 2 minutes so we made sure to include a variety of interesting and experimental shots to grab the attention of the audience. Our Group having these shots in our opening sequence meant that we could achieve a higher grade whilst creating a sequence that is interesting to watch.
We wanted to take a different approach on what our thriller was going to be about, to do this we started off by doing a fairly large mind map of what thrillers would usually include. Once we were happy with our mind map, we took a step back and looked at the ideas we had discussed to think about what hasn’t already been done or if one idea could be developed into a new and fresh idea. We really wanted to make sure that our thriller was different from the others that were going to be made by the people in our year.
The story line we came up with was about a girl whose mother was murdered, she then gained revenge at the murderer by killing his wife; the one person that he loved and trusted. I am happy with what I was able to achieve as I felt our finished project was to a high standard considering the equipment available, the lack of budget and the short amount of time we had to complete the project.
To make sure that out film kept good pacing and didn’t become boring, we used fast paced cuts from the victim walking to other scenes to not only build tension but to keep the visuals interesting. I wanted to avoid keeping the shot on the victim walking for too long as there was little action in this footage; fast pace cuts help to build tension and create a thriller like atmosphere. I think that the way that I have edited our film opening was simple yet very effective because I decided we should work on sections individually instead working on the whole thing. This way we could insure that every part of the sequence had as much attention paid to it as all the other parts. This also gave us the advantage of being able to develop on interesting and abstract ideas effectively, as we were focusing on one section at a time, perfect for a thriller film.
I wanted to change the conventions a bit by having both our characters as females; the killer and victim. Because of what is shown often in mainstream film, the expectation held by the audience are that a man will attack the woman so by changing it to an all female cast it adds to the shock value when she is attacked, as the audience is likely to expect a male attacker. This also makes it harder to predict what the story is about because it’s not what is expected. Showing this in the opening is effective because it captures the imagination of the audience without giving away too much of the plot.
The conventional idea of male attacks female will be very recognizable and familiar with today’s audiences. So instead I wanted to change the way the audience was seeing this situation, and feel as though there was something more to this attack that is happening in front of them. The sequence then holds more importance to the audience because of this unconventional detail that I have created.
We felt it was important however to include some of the conventions to keep our project true to the thriller genre. Some of the conventions we included were not showing the killers full identity, the only parts of the killer we did see where her eyes. By only showing her eyes it makes the audience feel intimidated. This adds to the tension that is slowly climaxing to the attack. We had point of view shots from just the attacker throughout the sequence, this was done to create the feeling that the main character was in danger and she was being watched by someone she obviously cannot see, another aspect of the thriller genre. By showing the audience that she is being followed, more tension is created as they are aware of the present danger but are powerless as they can only watch in anticipation.
These are just two of the conventional methods that we included in our sequence that helps to work the imaginations of the audience because it’s not obvious what will happen next. I think that involving these conventional methods was worth doing because it helps to create a relationship with the audience by making them understand the sequence enough but not too much, ensuring that they are paying attention. The conventions also add familiarity as they are related to the thriller genre.
I felt that the preliminary match cutting that I had done earlier in the year was very use full when it came to making a rough draft of our whole sequence. Also it was useful in learning how to use the editing software, this benefited me a lot because later on when it came to doing this thriller opening we had no problems with trying to find tools on the program and were able to get straight into putting all the cuts together without problems. The story boarding that was involved in this match cutting exercise also benefited our group because, we knew what key shots we should be focusing on; when it came to story boarding for our thriller opening, We was also able to fill in the text boxes provided with our ideas and how the shots that we had sketched would be interesting for the audience to see.
The filming that we had done for the match cutting, allowed us to experiment with different shot types, angles and ideas. We used different kinds of shot types for example; over the shoulder and tracking shots, which when used in variety are very interesting to watch. All the different types of shots that we tried out in the filming process made it seem worth while later on.
Because the plot for the match cutting exercise wasn’t very exciting but the various shot types helped to make something simple look visually appealing. This fact helped us a lot later on because it was pretty much the same case with our thriller opening, the plot wasn’t that interesting or different, but using lots of different shots instantly made it more interesting. The match cutting also gave us advantage in choosing the kind of style that we wanted to shoot our thriller in later on. We also got to use the Sound Track Pro software allowing us to experiment with the different types of sounds that are on the program and create a sound track to suit our footage.
By looking at our thriller opening, we can clearly identify that both character where females and this factor I think, will definitely attract a wider range of people to come and see the thriller film because it is in some ways breaking the rules. This would attract people by interesting them with the fact that they are females and young also. I think that because we have quite a few unconventional traits our thriller film will be more suited and accepted by small independent cinemas that with releasing our film we will make it a small independent UK release. This will be distributed around a small number of UK ‘art houses’. By choosing to show our film like this we are taking less of a risk with how much money we could lose, although there is still a probability of losing money , it wouldn’t be as much money that could have been lost if we where to try and distribute our thriller opening to a big Hollywood blockbuster company. Another alternative is having the film released onto a TV channel and DVD at the same time, or even making it available for download on the internet. By doing this it our thriller will get a reputation on TV and even bigger exposure on social networking sites i.e. Facebook and Myspace which will then make the DVD more appealing when it’s released.
Our main target audience was young adults (14-22), but our full thriller film will involve a lot more parts for example the themes of revenge where input from the audience will be needed for it to be understood and somehow justified. The film will be more based on thoughts rather than action making it a physiological thriller. This creates a specific audience for viewing our thriller film and understanding why certain events took place and why the main character chooses to think the way she dose. The typical type of young adult that we have tried to aim for would be; someone who is into novels about revenge and mysteries maybe English students, someone who is interested in watching a film which covers many social problems which are difficult to express, and someone who is interested in new ways of filming and new types of narrative. Overall I am very happy with the outcome of our project and feel that the things I wanted to communicate to the audience through our film will be realized, I also learnt many lot of techniques which I can carry through to the next project I work on.
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