Final Thriller

Below is my final thriller video 'Galicia' 

Evaluation Task 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Above I made a prezi to complete my evaluation Task 7, it shows how my journey to my thriller developed and changed over time. 

Evaluation Task 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Below is my thriller with annotations embedded about what software we used. Please make sure you have the annotations on when you watch it to enable you to read about the different technologies we used and how we used them. 

I think for me one of the technologies, which I learned the most about was using slow motion. This played a big role in our thriller; we used the smooth slow effect on the Sony NX5. We had to make sure we got the timing right as we only had three seconds for each shot, so it was crucial we pressed the button in good time so that it worked well with the timing of the action which we intended to film. We had to put the camera on a different filming setting, which was smooth slow setting. The smooth slow feature allows the recording of 1080 High definition or Standard definition clips at four times the normal rate, which when played back at normal speed allows the action to be slowed down up to four times. I learnt all this from using it on shoot day which I wouldn’t have known about otherwise and I think it will be a really useful tool to have the knowledge about later but it had particular good use in my thriller as it helped add tension and build a climax just before the start of the fast-paced action that followed.

The second technology that taught me a lot was the Adobe after effects. We imported the sound effects, gunshots and blood into Adobe after effects where we were able to edit and add it in. Firstly we learnt how to choose lighting effects for the guns to make it look more realistic, whilst doing this we had to make sure we positioned it correctly so that they flashed where ever the gun was pointing, we then highlighted the areas that the gun shot would have lighted up the body parts and face. We also had to use the moving effect to make sure the blood for instance remained on the character if they moved slightly so it looked like they had really been shot. Once we had done this we imported them from Adobe after effects into Adobe premier pro, this is also an extremely useful skill for me to now have as it means in the future I will gradually improve using these effects and developing my skills further.

Evaluation Task 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation Task 5:

This in an interview ‘script’ that I put together with all the information I about I attracted and addressed my audience?

The interviewer (Ben): “Hi Saskia I am here to get a bit of information from you about the recent thriller opening that you made. I will start by asking, what pleasures can your target audience take from your thriller?

Saskia (me): Well Ben since our target audience is men over the age of 40. Our thriller contained a lot of violence suspense and fast-paced action, we did this purposefully as stereotypically this age group and gender enjoy guns and violence and lots of action that will keep them engaged! We wanted to get their adrenaline going whilst watching our thriller therefore we made sure our audience are left waiting in anticipation for the drama to occur, the violence is also important as when we interviewed what are target audience would be they all stated “they like action and gun scenes” which is lucky as our thriller scene contains lots of that!

Ben: Wow, you sound like you really have your target audience soused.

Saskia: We also kept our audience attracted to our thriller by the tension that is built up; this means they are on the edge of their seats, eager to find out what happens next. The last thing our target audience thoroughly enjoyed was the death in the scene; this attracted our audience as its very unexpected and foreshadows what might happen next.

Ben: So from that I take it you have made a thriller?

Saskia: Yes we have created a dramatic thriller, which contains a lot of action on our opening scene.

Ben: Was there any reason you chose to do that?

Saskia: Well we purposefully did this because we thought it could engage a larger audience as many people enjoy this type of genre. Action is a universal like genre that appeals to a huge amount of people.

Ben: For those of us who aren’t so sure with the technical l terms could your thriller be a sub-genre?

Saskia: No because although it contains lots of action the media product is a thriller with conventions of a thriller for instance all the tension and guns involved, But it does have action influences. I can see that it is easy to get confused. Even if our thriller were categorized as an action thriller it would be a hybrid genre without being an action film, if that makes any sense?

Ben: Yes, I now understand the difference. So my next question would be have there been any other films that have influenced or given you inspiration for you’re thriller?

Saskia: Yes there have been a few such as The Dark knight, Terminator 2 and Special forces. All three of these films have a similar target audience to my thriller as they have the same action conventions that all appeal to middle aged men. I actually also got inspiration from video games such as Rainbow 6 siege and Call of duty as both these media products contain lots of fast paced action with guns and violence.

Ben: I see so where did you choose to set you’re thriller?

Saskia: We decided to set it in an old factory/warehouse type of place; we did this because it is a stereotypically creepy place where most everyday people wouldn’t choose to go.

Ben: So why did you choose this location?

Saskia: we thought this would help add extra uneasiness and create a very unsettling atmosphere for our viewers. The indoor also gives mystery as we don’t know where the location is and the audience then wants to find out what is going on!

Ben: Right, so you believe your audience will respond well to this?

Saskia? I do because we kept it dark and tense, so gradually as the thriller unfolds and becomes clearer to the audience they are keen to watch on and discover what will happen next.

Ben: So are they in the warehouse?

Saskia: Yes, they are in this warehouse, which intrigues the audience and sets the scene perfectly for lots of action to unfold. We used industrial mise-en-scene props that made it appear like an old and deserted warehouse. The setting was so important as we didn’t want to give too much away as this will encourage our target audience to want to watch on. They also stay engaged as they try and work out the pieces of the puzzle that our thriller is and therefore continue watching to discover the answers.

Ben: That sounds like a clever way in engaging you’re audience. For those of us who haven’t yet had a chance to watch you’re thriller, what is you’re plot line?

Saskia: There is a young man who is taken hostage by a foreign villain and there is the hero Special Forces man trying to save the young man, whilst trying not to set off the bomb that is wired around the room.  The audience are on edge as they are aware of what’s going on but they cannot do anything about it…As an audience they will be excited to watch on as they will not be excepting the ultimate failure of all three characters we don’t except them to all fail and die. Therefore the audience is left in shock, which is a good thing as it means they are emotionally committed to my thriller.

Ben: Wow, that sounds pretty tense! I know I am asking you many questions but I think we are all so keen to hear about all the little details of you’re thriller. How did you choose to create you’re title sequence?

Saskia: We used old blue prints for the background ad this gave little hints to the audience as to what is going to follow. We don’t reveal who is who or why and this results in our title sequence being quick, decisive and engaging. We then in the opening don’t explain much, which leaves the audience to work out things for themselves. The action and suspense straight away is key in engaging our audience.

Ben: Can you tell me a bit about the characters you used?

Saskia: We have used three very stereotypical characters that appear in thrillers. First of all we have the Foreign Villain, he keeps the audience on edge as he speaks a foreign language therefore they don’t understand him and there is something very terrorist like. The audience gets excited, as they know there will be some sort of backstory.

Ben: I must admit most thrillers I have watched have a villain who everyone dislikes!

Saskia: I agree with you, the second important character is our Victim! He is a young man, who leaves the audience asking lots of questions, as we don’t know why he has been put there. Lastly we have out ‘hero’ he is a Special Forces professional; the mise-en-scene of his costume suggests he is engaged and tactical. This is confirmed instantly as he shoots the villain straight away and appears to have no remorse for his actions.

Ben: I see, so what narrative devices did you use?

Saskia: We have used a lot of suspense with a cliffhanger at the end when our victim say’s “you’ve killed us all” This Attracts our audience as they don’t know what will happen next, why they were all killed or by who? These are ongoing and Continuous questions that our audience are asking meaning they are enjoying the mystery.

Ben: In terms of media representation, which social groups are you appealing to and how?

Saskia: We are appealing to our target audience but also other social groups such as other younger men because our victim if of that age. We also give the middle age men a hero like figure, which they can aspire to look up at.  We haven’t appealed to females or anyone under the age of 15 as given our violence we have concluded it would not be appropriate for younger kids, and due to the fact we have not involved any females it wouldn’t necessarily appeal to them.

Ben: Do you have any music in the thriller?

Saskia: We do use a non-diegetic soundtrack, which has eerie almost upbeat sounds during the credits at the beginning this builds up the atmosphere. It would attract our audience as it builds up tension from the beginning, as they are just waiting for what is going to happen next.

Ben: During the credits of you’re thriller, what information did you give and why?

Saskia: We used directors, star-names and the thriller title ‘Galicia’ as these all play a role in attracting our audience. Galicia it a region in Spain known for activities of organized crime to do with being the main European entry point for Colombian cocaine. This for us holds huge significance as it signifies hints at what our thriller will be about.

Ben: That is something I was not aware of but I am definitely interested to find out more

Saskia: We also gave the names of people, for instance Mike Niland, as he is the upcoming Tom hardy. Alehandro Calpsou, which is a Spanish foreign name this ads drama and these big names intrigue the audience.

Ben: In terms of editing what techniques did you choose to use?

Saskia: We used lots of special effects for the gunshots to make it a more atmospheric opening. Then we used short shots for the action parts as this makes it look more intense and keeps the audience on the edge and fully focused on what they are watching. We also switched between slow motion and fast, as this really helps add tension, which ultimately keeps the audience, intrigued.

Ben: So lastly I am going to ask you overall what conventions have you used to make it clear ‘Galicia’ is a thriller?

Saskia: We used classic and obvious signs such as non-diegetic sound-track, Diegetic sound of speaking and heavy breathing and the protagonist is in the mercy of the antagonist. All these things help make it clear to the audience that it is a thriller I am shooting.

Ben: Well thanks very much Saskia, I am really excited to watch the rest of the movie!

Saskia: Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy the film!

Below I have set up the interviewer conducting the questions. Then on the right we have the interviewee getting asked the various questions

Evaluation Task 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

We wanted to find the best suited audience to view our thriller we decided to interview different people to determined what type of age group and gender would  most likely watch our thriller. We came up with six questions that we could ask to our interviewees we wanted to make sure we interviewed a good range of different people and ages so that we could collect the best and most accurate data. 

Having filmed all our interviews, I then watched all of them through making a table like chart so it is easier to compare results. Having collected the data and laid it out in a chart I then started comparing results. Our results suggest that apart from one women we interviewed who said her favorite genre was horror the other woman’s favorite genre of film was either comedy or Romance and no one said action or thriller. 

Having looked at this I started asking myself if woman would actually sit down and watch our thriller however I was surprised by the results as even though thrillers were not these females top choice our results show that one female between 21-39 actually said “The grimmer the better”. One male said his favorite  genre was comedy but the rest said they liked action or dramas. I would therefore think the more likely audience for our thriller would probably be male although our thriller is suspenseful so would appeal to some females and has lots of action. I found that the younger boys between 15-20 didn’t actually find thrillers as interesting as the older men and actually prefer drama and comedy’s. 

Finally I decided to create a “fake” Facebook profile of someone whom from my results seems to fit the ideal age and gender for wanting to watch my thriller. I created a male called William Green and made a status that he would have written. I discussed the thriller inception which was mentioned by males in my interviews as one of their favorite thrillers. From there I put a picture of the film and discussed how much ‘William’ loved the film and Leonardo DiCaprio acting. I mentioned the acting as I found that when I asked people what makes a good thriller a lot of them mentioned how important the acting was to them. I made his age 41 as the males who were most interested in thrillers and action were the males over 40. I chose a photo of a man who could be of this age of the internet and I made it appear as realistic as possible by showing he is from Manchester and studied at Manchester university  but now lives in London where he is self-employed. I do believe this age group and gender are the best target audience to view our thriller from the research I did.

Evaluation Task 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation Task 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent the area of Class and status as well as Ethnicity?

The media extract that we created from the institution that is ‘us’ has the characters mainly adhering with the stereotypes. I am going to look at how camera angles, Mise-en-scene, Editing and Sound help discover how these four things begin to communicate how Class and status as well as ethnicity are portrayed to our audience.

First of all I am going to focus on the variety of camera angles and shots that we used. We are shown an extreme close up of our victim who is attached to the chair; we therefore see the frightened and fearful emotions shown on his face. As an audience we feel sympathy towards him here we have a created a character that is adhering to the stereotype that ‘white middle class’ people are good and almost always innocent in such situations. Through a mid long shot we really see the stereotypical representation that the man working for the Special Forces playing the ‘hero’ role is good as well as middle-class. We see this through his professional gear and serious facial expressions. He is also adhering to the positive stereotype that middle class workingmen are honest and responsible all of the time. In contrast we see how the stereotypical representation of the ‘villain’ is shown through camera angles. As an institution “we represented” him from two different sides to begin with we shot with low angles showing how he has power over our victim, but we adhered to the stereotype that the ‘villain’ never wins and the plot changed when our ‘hero’ special forces man entered. From then on our working class villain was only shot using high angles which portrayed him as smaller therefore of lower status then the middle class men and this had particular significance when he lay dead the audience were ‘looking down on him’ in a negative way. Showing us the negative way in which the media represents lower class people and those of different ethnicity.

I then went on to look at Mise-en-scene and how this helps to reveal ethnicity, class and status in our thriller. I first looked at costume and how this plays a huge role in the representation of the various characters. For instance we represented our villain wearing a costume, which was all black, which connotes death and adheres to the negative stereotype that all villains wear black. In terms of showing his working class background and foreign status we dressed him in rugged, dirty clothes this adheres to the stereotype that foreigners are dirty and may not present themselves as the ‘typical Wight good guy’ would. He also has a black balaclava mask that covers his face for a lot of our thriller therefore we cannot see his emotions and so can’t relate to him, we also feel he is trying to hide his identity as an audience you then feel he is untrustworthy and this makes us feel intimidated and fear the unknown. 

In contrast we have the binary opposite of our innocent victim whom we represented in a white shirt which connotes purity, innocence and heroism with smart black trousers and shoes suggesting he may play an important role in society this adhers to the well known stereotype that middle class men have smart clothes and hold high positions of responsibility in society. His shirt however is covered in red blood suggesting he has been beaten up therefore the audience are aggravated by the negative treatment this man has received which has taken away the purity of the all white shirt. I then looked at another section of Mise-en-scene we tried to represent which were facial expressions. We only see the villains face up close once here we see his anger and therefore feel concerned for our victim and his safety, as he appears to be in serious danger we sympathies with him. Another area of miser-en-scene that plays a large role in our thriller is the prop we chose to have our villain with a big black gun, which immediately acts as a warning for the audience letting them know that there is potential for danger. Here our villain is adhering to the stereotype that all criminals carry weapons on them. The gun connotes violence and because of whom has it unpredictability. Contrasting with our villain we have our hero Special Forces man who also carries a gun. However here the audience does not feel threatened instead we have represented our character to look in power and therefore the audience is actually relived at the sight of the gun as they feel protected going with the stereotype that guns in the hands of ‘honest’ men are nothing to worry about, here we see how the same prop can have such a different impact depending on which character is in contact with it.

Next I went on to look at how my media product represents ethnicity, class and status through editing. We used slow motion as our villain turns around to try and shoot the Special Forces man. This helps emphasise and focus on how evil he is, the audience also then immediately side with our special forces man adhering to the stereotype that hero’s always come out better then the villains and often win. We also used fade-to-black at the beginning of our scene when we first see our victims face, showing him looking vulnerable this helps put more meaning on his body language and face that looks scared, this creates the audience to fee concern and realise just how much danger he is in. To represent how ethnicity is shown we used lots of short shot duration for our foreign villain man, this means the audience don’t get long to analyse him therefore they feel like they cannot understand him or his motives and the audience is left feeling distant. This is very important as it adheres to the terribly negative stereotype that people of different spoken language are outcasts, as they cannot be understood in everyday society. We also used longer shot duration in our editing, which help represent social class and status as well as ethnicity. The long shot duration were of our middle class hero and victim, signifying they are more important therefore the camera gives them more time on screen to be watched by the audience in comparison with the working class man. Going with the stereotype that the higher your class position the more recognised and trusted by society you are.

The last way that representation can be showed in my thriller is through sound. Arguably the most important aspect in portraying ethnicity is through the use of diegetic sound such as the dialogue this is when we hear our villain speak and the audience’s suspicions that he is foreign and not English are confirmed when we hear him speak Spanish. This shows how he is ‘different’ as the language he speaks is unrecognisable to the audience they feel intimidated and therefore associate him with a bad and negative image. We purposefully represented him with a Spanish voice as this adheres to the stereotype that foreign people often are the villain in both the media and in real life and automatically because we cannot understand their language we jump to the conclusion they have something to hide.

In contrast both the white men speak English adhering to the stereotype that all white men are decent people whom are clean and have nothing to hide. We also used the diegetic ambient sound of gunshots. We used this as it helps set the violent tone of the thriller and reveal just how dangerous things can get when different ethnicity’s and people of various social class fight.

Overall our video extract uses camera angles, mise-en-scene, 
editing and sound to help explore the representation of class and status as well as ethnicity. I think it is clear how our media product represents these two areas. The end leaves the audience with a clear idea that all the characters in this thriller opening seem to be adhering to their stereotypes, and we do not have any characters that are challenging or subverting to the stereotypes you may see within a thriller.