Evaluation by Jhenelle

‘1 Down 2 to go’ compares to actual thriller openings by using the same forms and conventions of the genre such as props and iconography, narrative elements, characters, audiovisual style and themes. However, it also challenges these things and does them differently that how the audience would expect.
The story follows a group of girls who are stalked by a serial killer, this narrative links the opening to a sub-genre of thrillers called ‘serial killer’ thrillers. This sub-genre usually features a serial killer, typically male, and the protagonist’s efforts to get away from them. In the typical opening in this sub-genre, the serial killer kills a minor character, as happens in some thrillers such as Scream. In ‘1 down 2 to go’; this happens, and right after lets the protagonist know of her impending doom. In most thrillers in this sub genre, the victims don’t know what’s going to happen or that they’re being threatened until after a few people have died: in our thriller opening; the other victims are immediately informed via text message.
The iconography used in this opening features a gun (weapon of the killer) which is one of the central objects used in thrillers. The characters also use a cell phone to carry forward the story, which will signify the youth that the story centres around, their use of technology also reflected in movies. Movies such as ‘One Missed Call’ use cell phones as a main element of iconography within the story, with the killer contacting the victims through their cell phones.
The music in this opening is also linked to the thriller genre in that slow suspenseful music was chosen to make some moments more intense, for example the scene where the girls find out that their friend might be in danger, cross cutting with scenes of their friend being killed, the sound gets higher and higher until she is killed and the opening comes to an end.
In our film opening, the characters shown are the victims and the killer. The killer is the only male character and shows him as the stereotypical serial killer/ stalker. In most thriller films, and film in the subgenre of serial killer thrillers, most serial killers are male. They are represented as psychopathic stalkers who are either obsessed with their victims or just kill for fun, but they are almost always male characters. The killer in this opening is mysterious in that you never really see his face; he seems like just a nameless murderer, which is also stereotypical because serial killers are generally thought to be male.
The female characters in the film are the victims, which is also a stereotype of the genre. The characters in this film are teenaged girls, dressed in stylish clothes with is what you would stereotypically see of these types of girls. Another stereotypical view of these girls is that they would be weak and defenceless and unable to overcome dangers, which is true of the characters at the beginning of the film when one girl is killed. One of the characters in the opening is the typical scream queen stereotype who is generally useless and gets killed first. Another character is a strong female character, who shows her resourcefulness in the film by having her cellphone on hand. She breaks the stereotype of women being victims to men because of this, maybe she will be able to survive throughout the film.
The image of these characters will show teenage girls as weak and easy to victimize while the killer, who is a man, will be violent and evil. The representations are stereotypical views on their respective gender also, with the girls being helpless and weak and the man being more powerful than them. In the opening this is what is portrayed, but hopefully further into the film, the girls might break the stereotype and brave the killer and ultimately defeat him (those who haven’t died, anyway.)
Our film would fit more as a low budget, independent film, possibly produced by Lionsgate, who have produced low budget thrillers such as the ‘Saw’ series, ‘Resident Evil’, ‘Bug’, ‘Skinwalkers’, ‘Captivity’, ‘Hostel’, ‘Lake Dead’, ‘The Eye’, etc. It would suit a small audience and aimed at small independent cinemas because of the low budget as well as it being similar to the narratives of themes of the movies produced by Lionsgate.
This film would be aimed toward teenagers; an audience that is targeted by a lot of thrillers which I think are similar to my film, like ‘Final Destination’ and ‘Tormented’. These tend to be 15 certificate films. Both are heavily aimed towards teenagers because of their main characters being teenagers, which is true of 1 down 2 to go. This film opening is intended to attract a young audience, by using characters that are teenagers so that they could relate to the main characters more and connect to them. Another thing teenagers could relate to is the setting of the mall, giving them an additional sense of terror because they usually go to places like that and things like what happens in the opening happens in their favourite places, along with the girly night out that a lot of teenagers can relate to. The use of mobile phones and cameras are also something that would be linked with teenage audiences because teenagers frequent this technology and are very attached to their phones, also adding more shock that they can relate to because the girls in the opening are victimized using their cell phones.
Feedback from audiences who have seen the opening find it very scary and hopefully the combined elements of terror and teenagers will attract that kind of audience because there are a few thriller movies aimed towards teenagers and teenagers are fans of thriller movies, like the Final Destination. The film was shown to teenagers aged 16 – 18, around the age of the target audience. The feedback was positive and the audience felt it was scary in parts, proving some of the forms and conventions effective to the genre of the film, though we could use more editing techniques for certain scenes. According to a random member of the audience audience; “I like the choice of music and the storyline, but I think it could do with more effects and more lighting when they’re in the car park.” One main criticism of the opening is the lighting; the audience felt some scenes were too dark or not lit well enough.
In the process of making this opening, I have learnt a lot about filming and editing processes. With filming, I’ve learnt that there are many factors to consider such as lighting, composition of shots, etc and using the camera to create the atmosphere or sense of panic needed in the opening, which is very interesting because the camera is the window through which the audience sees whatever you want them to see. I have also learnt a lot from editing, and putting all the shots together in the right order and sequence for the opening. I have also learnt how to put in certain effects, like slow motion which can be subtly controlled in percentage changes, and how to create the title sequences using transparencies so that the lettering appears over the image.
Music was another thing I learned to put on the film and dealing with the soundtrack and the dialogue which had to overlap each other. This required careful adjustment and synchronisation of the music and dialogue tracks. I have learnt a lot more about editing and filming than from the preliminary task, spending more time on the film and adding music and titles. Using the process of editing we were able to create the title sequence as a distinct feature separate form the main opening section. We did this by using still images that we could transform to black and white in a digital imaging program and then import these into Adobe Premiere and add film grain to it, , This title sequence wasn’t originally planned until we experimented during the editing stage. We were also able to dub the sound of a gunshot on a certain part of the opening, synchronising the sound against the scene and making it fit together.
In the preliminary task, we were required to film and edit a simple sequence. We learnt to put certain sequences together and put them in order, simply cutting from one shot to another. In this thriller opening main task, however, we learnt more editing techniques, such as crosscutting, for the more complicated scenes filmed. We also learned how to put a non-dietetic soundtrack onto the film and other techniques involving sound such as creating sound bridges to link 2 scenes together. Another thing we did for this opening that we didn’t do in the preliminary task was to create credit titles to put ahead of the opening.