Final Evaluation by Danielle

Danielle Waites

A/S Media Evaluation

For my media coursework, I worked in a group of four to produce a Thriller film opening. One of my many tasks to complete in this media project was to create a presentation, which had to include the forms and conventions of a Thriller film which i spoke about in great detail. Creating this presentation had a huge advantage on my knowledge as this way I could compare our film opening with world wide Thriller films, too see what type of iconography, editing, setting etc, they use, this is so i could get a more of an understanding of what makes a perfect Thriller film opening, I also included some annotations of film openings and film posters within my presentation. When our film was totally complete, we all had to go over it together, just to make sure, we included most of the forms and conventions, to make our film 'fit in' with the genre. Along with all our group opinion, we asked for feedback from our target audience after they watched it, to see if our Thriller film opening, met their 'standards'.

To relate our film opening to more 'real life' Thriller openings, we looked at all of the forms and conventions that the genre use, to make the 'typical' Thriller film. As mentioned above, I created a presentation, which partially looked at the forms and conventions. To start the forms and conventions, there is always a stereotypical victim, which includes, a innocent young girl, who doesn't really know her bearings around where the film is set, whereas the villain is more likely to be seen as the 'hard man', just like in the Thriller film 'Harry Brown'. In our film opening, we kind of kept to the convention of the victim being a young innocent female, with her female friends, whilst the villain was a man, with a hood up and mostly covering his face. Normally, in a Thriller film, the women are stereotypically seen as 'sexy' and 'seductive', we didn't follow this convention, along with the convention of the villain, the villain is seen as a 'gangster' in a typical suit, however the villain in our opening, was dressed in jeans and a hoodie, which connotes that maybe his a 'hooligan' who is getting revenge. The setting comes under the convention iconography, which we have to consider within our Thriller film, normally the Thrillers are set within an urban environment (which was the setting we used) to create that 'gangster' feeling which also links back to our villain character, the setting links to him, as the urban environment is also associated with gangs. At the start of our opening, it was quiet busy, with the public walking around, but then when it came to the killing scene, it became more deserted, and the victim and the villain was 'together'. We also set our film at night, this naturally creates more suspense, as the victim is a girl, it automatically set her to be seen as more vulnerable. In addition to the conventions in a Thriller film is also the visual and audio style in a Thriller film. We chose to use a gun shot at the end of our film, which is a stereotypical of a Thriller film weapon. When you see the villain holding the gun towards the victims face, there is a sudden black screen, before the black screen, it has a point of view shot from the victim eyes, the back screen symbolises death, and could be the automatic shut of the eyes of the victim as she got killed. As well as adding a gunshot, we added some music over the top of the opening, to create suspense within the audience, to get the audience more interested in the opening, we used more eerie music which makes the audience more wary of what is going on within the film. Then the music slows down a bit, and starts up again, but this time more faster, which creates a lot of suspense within the audience and starts getting them thinking of whats going to happen. We also decided to use this type of music in the scene where it is cross cutting between the other girls, while the murder is taking place. Furthermore, adding to all the other forms and conventions, lighting had a big impact on our film and it is also a very important convention within the 'mainstream' Thrillers, we used quite dark lighting in our opening as it was quiet hard to control as we used a public place. On the other hand the lighting was quiet successful at some points of the opening, as we filmed in the dark, and with the street lights against the villains face, we couldn't see him, which is also a typical feature of a Thriller film. Another important convention would have to be suspense and action, which are the two things that the audience suspect when watching a Thriller film. We also included it within our film opening, we done this by including a murder, with a 'typical' Thriller weapon, which was a gun, other weapons include; knifes, pieces of rope to strangle the victim to death, an axe, poison, hammer any many more.

Our group particularly stuck to most of the forms and conventions of a typical Thriller film but the one which standed out for me was the environment, the environment we used was a typical urban setting, but you wouldn't really see it within a Thriller film, this is what made our film unique. As mentioned above, we used a very busy public area to start of with and then it followed on into a more quiet area, where the victim got killed, so the villain wouldn't get caught. However the only thing we went against in the forms and conventions of the setting would be, the lighting within the film, even though its was good in some ways, if we had more professional equipment, we could of included some extra lighting at the start of the scene.

All the way throughout the film me and all my group had to keep in mind the audience for this opening, this includes the planning, we had to think about how to attract them. First our group had to select an age range that we think is appealing to that particular age. The age we thought was suitable for this type of horror film is fifteen plus, as there is a killing in the opening which used violence and a weapon. Typically teenagers like films that have a lot of action as they are particular active themselves so therefore they can relate to the film a lot more. I also think Murder and a revenge story also gets the teenagers intrigued into our opening. The visual elements such as the surrounding that our film opening contains, are very important to get the audience interested as it sets the scene in many films, for example our film is set at night, which sets and eerie atmosphere. In our film opening we didn't really look closely to gender, as we aimed our film to interest both genders, we done this by not focusing one one gender, we used both male and female. Just to make sure we got our film to the correct age range we asked some teenagers of this age to view our film opening and give us feed back on how they found the violence and how they think we can improve it. Here our some of the feedback that we collected after they watched the opening...

" What an excellent start to a Thriller film, its certainly my sort of genre, i would recommend it to anyone who like this type of action/revenge film. However i would change the lighting in the film, sometimes you cant really see whats going on, this could easily be solved by turning the light on, on the camera."
Another viewer said:

" This Thriller film contains all of the forms and conventions of the typical genre, but i wouldn't recommend it, for a Thriller film opening, i expect it to be exciting, this opening lacked loads of that. I wanted to be taken back by the opening, but it was just like any other film, I know all the forms and conventions are typical, but most Thriller films change them or give them a bit of a twist, this film opening is good, just not to my standards.

" Wow, what a film opening, I wanted it to carry on, it so addictive, it has typical forms and conventions of a Thriller film, the villain looked scary and you don't know whats coming up on the screen next. The story line was very easy to follow, i have no complaints or changes that should be made to this, it is perfect and fits into my standards completely.

Looking back at all of our film 'critics' comments, 2 out of 3 of them are positive, this shows that our films is very successful, and would suit a big release and more of a bid budget film working with a major film production. As a group we all decided our film would suit this sort of release as we are catering for a big genre and many members of the public like the Thriller genre, we could easily cater for this audience as we learnt how to draw the audience towards the film from the opening. I personally feel that our opening can be taken further and expanded to make a main stream movie. To make our film even more appealing to the audience, if our film was major release we would add stunts, more effects, a lot more action and techniques. However i do see the other 'critics' point of view, our groups film does need to challenge the forms and conventions more to make a more a story line, so it would also make it within an independent production. On the other hand, i definitely think our film should be pushed towards the big budget market.

Making our film, has given me such a huge amount of knowledge on the Thriller genre and i am fully confident on doing another film project again. I have now got more awareness of making a film. All of our group thought that the editing part would be the easiest, but clearly not. We had to go through all of our shots of different scene and put them together, to make sure the film is absolutely perfect for the audience to watch, as time consuming it is, we all got through it and worked very well as group. Before doing my project, i was fully confident, as I studied the Horror genre in my last project at GCSE, i kind of knew what the editing process was like.

In our preliminary task, we had to film and edit a simple sequence. We learnt how to put certain sequences together and put them in order, just by cutting from one shot to another. In this thriller opening main task, we learnt more editing techniques, such as crosscutting, for the more difficult 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. The preliminary task i done was a great successful as it prepared me for what i had to done for my coursework. This is why i think my Thriller film opening became a fantastic success. Also from ym preliminary task i not only learnt how to edit effectivly, i got alot more out of it, such as, the shots that make the film, and how film productions use them in certain ways to gets the audience understanding the story and on the edge of there seats, (if the genre is appropriate). I also learnt alot about the mis-en-scene, not only in a thriller film, but in other genres too, and how it affects the film in may different ways, this is including keeping the audience keen to watch the film.

Not only did i enjoy working within a group, i really enjoyed shooting the film, although it was really tiring keep shooting the same scene over and over again, however, we had a very successful outcome in the end. So overall i think that our Thriller film opening was a great success. I also think it is amazing how we made such a brilliant film and had such a magnificent experience, by just starting off with a storyboard, drawing on a piece of paper. As said in many paragraphs above, I think our film followed the forms and conventions of a typical Thriller film, i feel that we followed all the right steps and created a good piece of, working in a group very well.