The Evaluation!

As part of my AS Media course I was set a practical assignment, my aim was to ‘construct the opening sequence of a thriller film’ of at least two minutes duration. For the assignment, I was allocated into my own individual group; my group consisted of four people: me, Sanita, Vanessa and Gizem. There were various resources available to us; these included the Tripods, Mini DVD camcorder, and digital video editing software, which consisted of ‘Final cut pro’ for construction.

Before we commenced our practical project I had to research into existing thriller films and how suspense and tension is created in these films; this was so I could get a rough idea and understanding of what codes & conventions are needed in order to create a successful thriller opening sequence. I was given the opportunity to do this research during my lessons, as I observed and analysed how narrative is developed and tension is built in various thriller films including ‘Arlington Rd and What lies beneath’. I also observed clips from 5 different thriller films, including films such as ‘Psycho (1960)’, directed by ‘Alfred Hitchcock-the master of suspense.’

As I watched this clips I realised that all thriller films promote intense, excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension. Thriller films are virtually synonymous and interchangeable categorizations, with similar characteristics and features. If the genre is to be defined strictly, after watching these films I would say that a genuine thriller is a film that rentlessly pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience cliff-hanging at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax. The films also used similar conventions in order to build this suspense; this included raising false plateau: when the audience is exposed to a threat and then the threat is illuminated, voyeurism: when the audience is places as the voyeur where they are watching without being seen, Binary opposition: when tension is set up between 2 groups/elements and inter-texuality: when a similar scene is used to that of an existing film.

Via my research I realised that the openings of films are crucial for grabbing the audience’s attention and gaining their interest, they are also important for revealing the genre of the film and introducing the main characters. Openings sequence should engage the audience and make them feel that they want more. The opening of our thriller film will be an exposition in which the main theme and stylistic convention will be presented to the audience, I believe that the opening scene of ‘Arlington Road’ was most effective at grabbing my attention, as the camera angle, sound effect, and distorted look was typical of a thriller film, therefore, this influenced the most when I contributed ideas to the group for our film.

After gathering a considerable amount of research my group started contributing ideas into our thriller production, we decided upon an identifiable target audience, we chose a mainstream audience, males and females, aged between 15-21 year olds, we set a classification for our film as a certificate 15, we realised that this impacted on the narrative, the mise-en-scene, soundtrack and every other aspect of our film and when deciding upon the narrative of the film we took into account that we will be unable to include some language or explicit scenes. E.g. violence, sex

We decided to name our thirller 'Capture.' This was mainly because the villain takes pictures of his victims using a camera hence. Also, it can foreshadow what might happen later on in the film. So already we are giving away information to our audience but not too much.

We selected a particular generic convention; we decided to go for enigma, creating an air of mystery with an anonymous hooded person taking pictures, we also wanted to have a sense of atmosphere and ambience rather than action during our narrative, therefore no action took place during the narrative of the film.

As we all know, all openings must attract the audience into watching the film and set up questions which will be answered later in the film. So to help set up questions, we used conventions of thriller films and by comparing to those used in Arlington Road. We used a variety of camera angles which had different affects. There was a Point of View shot when our second victim looks at her phone, this is effective as it puts the audience in the victims position. We also was aware that including a close up is vital when making a thriller film, so we included one of the villian. This was also effective, as the close up shows the expressions and helps create an edgy and nervy atmosphere. A high angle shot of our third victim to emphasis the innocence and vulnerablilty. A low angle shot of our villan, this is effective as it shows that he is in power and superior. We tried using various of different camera distances to create dramatic effects, so for example shooting a scene from different angles. We also included an establishing shot to show our locations.

When editing we had had various shots to choose from, however, when watching the scene of the two victims we realised that we had broken the 180 degrees rule, as we shot from two different sides; this made the shot seem confusing. We tried resolving this problem by reversing the shot in Final Cut Pro, but it just didn't work out. The main transition we used were fade in fade out as we thought it showed continuity and meaning. We changed the colour of the scene, when it was from the villians prospective, this was so the audience got a clear understanding. When choosing the soundtrack, I took into account that we needed a slow pace soundtrack, as no dramatic action took place in our film, I chose 3 favourites and together we chose the soundtrack for our film. We included the soundtrack in and muted the background noises that were included whilst filming.

The title of the film came in with the soundtrack I believe that this was a good effect, we added the production company and the title using the fade in fade out transition; this emphasised it more as they were shown in different shots. The fonts of the credits were in white colour this fitted in well with the eerie mise-en-scene.

Whilst looking at the final product I realised that the soundtrack very much suited the film also the effects of the transition worked well. The film gave a clear understanding, of what was going; showing that their was a victim and a person who was obsessed with this person this was helped along with the different colour tones.

Tension was built throughout the movie as there was an uncertainty on what will happen next, there was also a high-level of anticipation when the killer was caressing the picture of the girl, this was helped along with the change in music and the shots of close-ups and panning shots across the wall. .

a close up clip from The Ring, revealing facial expressions:

Mise en scene is everything that appears before the camera, this includes the characters, the use of lighting and locations. We decided the person playing our villan, should be a male.This was because in majority films males are mostly the villians, and men are stereo-typically seen as strong and agressive whereas woman are seen as vulnerable hence the reason why our victims are all female. This connoted to the audience that the film was from a prejudiced point of view, as the victim was girl however, I wanted to subvert genre expectations by suggesting to the group that we should use a female as a killer rather than a male, they disagreed. We decided to have a mystery man where you do not see the villians face, which gives the audience a sense of insecurity. Music also helps create tension and suspense. Our non-diegtic sound was the music. At the beginning is a simple piano playing in the background to set the mood within the scene, sound effects, like the violin then emerged in which added the dramatic effect. As it continues playing, the music gains base and helps create a vibe. Altogether, we made sure our music was eerie to make the audience feel on edge. Our only diegtic sound, was the heavy breathing, which was effective at it helped to spook out the audience.

'Capture' consists of three female victims. So i suppose you can say we are being gender specific, as all the victims are female. But as for races we tried including different backgrounds, this is shown through our victims, black, white and asian. So all different races can relate to it. The locations used, such as the park, bus-stop and the streets to elaborate the fact that it could take place anywhere. The characters are dressed in everyday wear, nothing too fancy. All these things help the audience relate to the characters.

I would say 'Capture' is aimed at those who like to be thrilled! And aimed mostly at teenagers. They could range in ages and class, that is why we thought it was important to include different races amongst our victims, so the audience can relate to them. All teenagers are different - as in taste in music, fashion and upbringing. So our audience could be either aspirers or achievers, or maybe a bit of both! A typical person who fits into our target audience would be: 'Gemma, 17, live in London, works part time and also goes to college/school. She loves socialising with friends and loves hanging out. Hobbies are reading, swimming and exersicing.'

To help attract my audience, i will conduct a research and see who is the most popular celebrity amongst teenagers at the moment and get that person to play the lead role. I would also attend Film Festivals and promote the film. Trailers can be viewed on TV and on YouTube. We also would advertise our thriller on all sorts of leaflets, magazines and newspapers, to help attract a wider audience. We would also produce a profile on MySpace and Facebook, these are the two most common websites amongst teens, therefore it will help us tagert our specific audience.

Obviously our dream would be for 'Capture' to become a Hollywood Blockbuster movie! If this was the case, i think Columbia Pictures would be the best media instituition to distribute 'Capture' simply because it one of the so-called Little Three among the eight major film studios of Hollywoods Golden Age, and it is one of the leading film companies in the world! So using this partulcar one could help attract our audience and make 'Capture' a huge success. But to be realistic, at first 'Capture' should be release in the UK first. So it should be distributed around several cinemas all over to attract wider audiences. We can then wait to see how successful it is and then release it on DVD. A couple of months, after the DVD release, 'Capture' should be available for download on the internet.

The process of constructing my thriller took several weeks, during this time i have gained knowledge about different technologies, and how to use them. At first, i knew absolutely nothing about how to work a camera never mind how to set it up! But thanks to our camera tutorial demonstated by Mickey, i gained vital information on how to work my way around the camera. Whenever we shot something, i always tried avoding using the Final Cut Pro to log and capture! I didn't know my way around the programme and had difficulty managing it. I think this took up most of our time and effort, as no one in our group had experience using this programme. To this day, i would not say i'm entirely confident using the programme! But because we had no choice but to use Final Cut Pro, gradually we got better at it. Also another programme that bugged me was the Soundtrack Pro. There were so many buttons, and i was just completely lost. But because we had our sound exercise previously it did help me slightly but soon later i forgot completely how to use it. This was also very time consuming, because at first we had to work our way around the programme and then explore different sounds we could use that was appropiate for our thriller. Internet was very useful to, not only did we manage to blog our progress we also managed to gather alot of research to help us construct our thriller.

Looking back at the previous tasks we were given, i believe we have improved alot. I have learnt new shots, and how to make the shots look proffessional and not tacky. I have learnt that detailed planning and organisation is the key to success! The shots in our Match-cut exercise and preliminary task were poor, but in the process of constructing our thriller i have learnt on how to improve on them.

Whilst testing the final product on the target audience they seemed satisfied as to what they expected a thriller movie to offer, there were various comments ranging from likes and dislikes of the film.

Overall I believe that we met the requirements of the expectations of a thriller movie as we gained the audiences satisfaction using the typical conventions of a thriller movie e.g. raising false plateau, when our first victim looks into the camera, at that point the audience thinks that she realises someone is watching her, but instead she carries on walking. We were successful in promoting tension and anxiety and leaving the audience cliffhanging on the edge of their seats,

However, if I were to improve the film I would change the way we shot some of the scenes. And watching other thriller opening in Vue cinema, i realised our idea was not very challenging and was in fact common, everyone else came up with unique storyline and managed to pull it off. So if i was assigned this task again, i would spend more time in coming up with a fantastic storyline.