I have discovered that an opening to any type of film, not just thrillers, is extremely important as it can determine whether the audience will want to continue watching the film or not. This is vital as if they find the opening sequence appealing, conspicuous, alarming or engaging, they would be tempted to watch more to see what the film can offer. I applied this knowledge when I was thinking of the storyline, as our storyline gives a sense of anonymity or mystery etc, making the audience gagging for what is going to happen next. However on the other hand, I feel like our opening sequence does challenge forms and conventions as in a normal film or an opening of a normal film like what we have produced, you normally would find the prime suspect to be a man. It would be the original storyline and it would be the stereotype of the audience. Nevertheless in this case, it is actually a woman who is the killer. Therefore, the fact that in my opening sequence, the roles have changed and it is actually the woman who is the killer, I feel like it does challenge the forms and conventions or a real media product. This I believe is another advantage for the audience reactions as when the overall opening sequence is revealed and they see the twist in it, they would be astonished, shocked and egger to want to see the rest of the film. Example of thriller’s which we looked at in class, which had good openings are The Shining, 28 days later etc. I remember watching a documentary which had loads of different directors telling there views and advice on how to structure a film, etc. I feel like I took this documentary on bored and used directors advice wisely as our seen does not reveal everything or so much excitement in the opening. It only reveals a little taster of what the film is about, but more in a leading on, guessing way, leaving the big scenes till the middle however still keeping the audience engaged and occupied with just a little two minute appetizer.
In my sequence, we used young teenage actors to play the role of early 20s characters. Our actors were culturally diverse, as we did not just have one type of ethnicity, we had 2 different types. This is the same for race and gender. We wanted our sequence to represent all kind of people, and not just stick to one type of gender, ethnicity, race etc. And so because of this, we involved genders, different races and different ethnicity to avoid any discrimination upon people (e.g. only involving one particular race in the sequence may come across too specific or questionable.). I would say our sequence is represented to ages 16-40. I believe these ages are more appropriate and suitable. Anything above, I do not think it would be very appealing, anything below I think it would be too advanced as it is more appropriate for young adults and middle-age adults, as it is more of a smart, conniving thriller. The only mistake I believe we made was the fact that we only included one type of class, which was middle class. We did not really represent other types of class. Everything about our sequence showed the type of class it was, e.g. the scenery, buildings, costume, surroundings, also the type of people around.
The characters in it are shown to be professionals and so it breaks away from the stereotypical image of what a killer should look like. Also with the killer being a woman, it once again offers an alternative to the regular cliché scenario where the killer is 9 times out of 10 a man. I feel like my media product may take the interest of people who are interested in thriller/horrors movies, however I do not feel like it is aimed at a particularly group. Reason for this is because my opening is very basic, calm and quite neutral however with that big twist, and there’s no particular social group however there is a particular age group which it is represented to, which is 15-40yrs, as people within these ages tend to be a more daring audience. Reason why we did not make a particular social groups is simply because we want our opening to be open to everyone, no one in particular, so that it will attract everyone and anyone who is simply interested in horror/thrilling films., which includes a lot of gore, bloody scenes, murders, gothic scenes etc.
I feel that our thriller opening would do well as a YouTube or internet piece because of the length of it, as it is not very long meaning it will stream very easily as an mp4. Alternatively because of the style in which it was shot e.g. the use of montage sequences and it’s slow pace it might be something you may see in an arthouse screening cinema. I do not think it being distributed as Universal Pictures/ Studios will be very appropriate.
In order to attract my audience, I will create links to it online and also post it on MySpace, Facebook, or even Bebo. I will also set up a theorem. (Internet clubs e.g. bloggings, or fun sites, etc.) As well as advertising it on these sites, I will also be distributing it on these sites as well. I will be advertising my sequence on the internet for more of a niche and not a mainstream audience reason being, not everyone is interested in short films. There are actually specific set of people who are interested into short film. For example, those who attend film festivals. Before myself and my actually started filming, in the spare time which I had, I decided to do some research, and I discovered that there were festivals where people appreciated short films. I found that a lot of people went to festivals such as Coanes and Portabello. Coanes festival tend to focus much more on mainstream, and Portabello festivals tend to focus more on niche.
My audience which my sequence will be represented to is a both male and female mainstream audience. I believe that it is more suitable and best to represent a sequence like mine to both genders so that it can it can equal for both sexes to watch it. Also, the footage does not have the storyline which specifies more for a particular sex, for example – If my sequence contained a lot of action and violence then the main target audience would be for males. My media product would target audience from the age of 16 to 30.This age group I feel is most suitable due to the context of the film. Anything younger, I feel may be to complex and advanced as my sequence has quiet a catch to it, making it far more mysterious compares to an average storyline. The type of class I personally think my sequence would represent is middleclass. As the characters in my sequence represented that class. Specifically, my media product will be represented to film studies university students, which attends a lot of independent screening, who enjoy a variety of genres short films. I believe that this would be a more appropriate audience, as my media product relates to what they are studying. A typical person who fits our target audience is 20 yrs old Susan, who comes from a middle class background. She works in a lawyers office and in her leisure time, enjoys going out on the weekend, to the cinema with either her boyfriend Jack or her best friend Mandy. She is a lively, who loves to have fun in her spare time. Harrods is her favorite place to shop, and is where she is most venerable. She is well spoken and well educated,
Whilst being I the process of making this thriller opening, I learnt a lot of new things. Technology was one of them. I have learnt to understand alone that technology plays a huge role in the film industry as well as in life. Threw this project, I have been introduced to so many different software’s such as, Final Cut Pro. This is a professional non-linear editing software applications developed by Apple Inc. The application is only available for Mac OS X version 10.4 or later, and is a module of the Final Cut Studio product. The software logs and captures video onto a hard drive (internal or external), where it can be edited and processed. The current version of Final Cut Pro, version 6.0.5, runs on both Intel and PowerPC processors. It is compatible with many hardware interfaces. At fist I must say I found it very daunting, not just this software but others I came in contact with, such as Final Cut Pro Soundtrack. I gradually became familiar each time I used these software’s, allowing me to learn more an actually understand what am doing. As I used theses software’s more often, I became experienced and more confident when using the equipment/machine.
After every lesson, we were expected to blog online everything we did within that lesson. Not only did I learn and experience different software’s but I also learnt how to use the internet efficiently and different sites such as www.blogger.com. A blogger is basically an online diary, which we had to note everything we did while during this project. I must say while reading back on all those lessons, it really did give me an insight into everything I did with my group. The use of the Internet helps greatly when it comes to promoting and advertising. Websites/social networking sites such as
1.www.vimeo.com
2.www.facebook.com
3.www.myspace.com
4.www.youtube.com
5.www.bebo.com
Vimeo is a video-centric social network site which launched in November 2004. The site supports embedding, sharing, video storage, and allows user-commenting on each video page. Users must register to upload content. Registered users may also create a profile and upload small user pictures as their avatars, comment and "like" videos. Vimeo is where we uploaded our final thriller opening, once everything was complete. It was placed here intentially so that it can be viewed by people (the audience) and so that we can get feedback on it, allowing us to know how people felt about it, and their thoughts and opinions. Without the internet , I don’t see how we could have gotten a much wider audience as the internet provides a wide audience worldwide, allowing us to receive different views and opinions from potential audience. Just like the feedback which we received I class and at the cinema. As Mary presented our film in the cinema and in the classroom. This allowed us to get feedback from our classmates which were thinking like critics. Feedback which myself and my group got was good use of costume, theme (especially the whole big twist), good use of camera shots, etc. My experience at the cinema was similar to my experience in the Mac room. I was scared, anxious and nervous of what people would think of my thriller opening. However as everyone cheered when myself and my groups video came on, I began too feel more relaxed and calm. By the end of the video, I felt pleased and satisfied with the audience response, and most of all I was proud with myself and my group’s hard work and effort each and every one of us put in. I learnt from just the audience reaction and comments that, if you work hard, you will get far in life. I also learnt how to work in a group as in work as a team, united and strong, I also learnt how to over come issues in a positive and civilized way.
I must say this project has opened my eyes much wider, and has taught me to appreciate the internet and technology much more. I also learnt to appreciate films much more than I do, as it is a lot of hard work, effort and determination. Before I used to think it was fairly quick and simple, however now that I have been exposed to a little taster of what it is like to make 2 minutes of a film, I am much more grateful for the films which I have watched, as I think about all the hard work which the directors, producers, actors, editors, etc put in. I have noticed that since this project, when I watch movies or TV programmes, I automatically become very critical and I analyze each scene/clip. E.g. I would say “o there’s a match cut, low angle shot, nice point of view shot, Etc.”
Reminiscing back at my preliminary task, I feel like I have learnt a lot from it, which helped a great deal while making our final product.
The term match cut is generally any cut that emphasizes spatio-temporal continuity and thus, contrasting the conspicuous and abrupt discontinuity of a "jump cut," forms the basis for continuity ('invisible') editing, such as the ubiquitous use of "match on action." In this more general usage, a match cut would thus contrast with jump cuts most immediately and form part of the "reality effect" of continuity editing rather than the visible fractures of spatial, temporal, graphic, and cause-and-effect continuity of jump cuts. Even within continuity editing, though, the match cut is a contrast with cross-cutting between actions in two different locations that are occurring simultaneously or parallel editing, which draws parallels or contrasts between two different time-space locations. I am pleased that I had a lesson based on this as I had learnt a lot from it, making me more prepared for when it came to making my final product, and making me analyze and understand how you can link different shots with each other, still continuing that form of continuity in movies which professionals use. I must say this lesson did not only help my group, but I feel like it helped other groups as well, as we were able to display it in our final product, allowing us to receive more marks. Threw this, I also learnt a lot about the film making industry, and I now fully understand how much effort, time, patience, and dedication is actually needed, as before we actually started filming, myself and my group had to create a story bored, which is basically a graphic organizer such as a series of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of previsualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence, including website interactivity. This was done so that when it came to filming, it would be easier and straightforward, as all you have to do is follow the storyboard. This makes the filming day much more organized. As the director/camera man knows exactly what shots to do. Due to the storyboard, and organization skills, we were organized when it came to use of props, costume, location, whether we needed permission to film in a certain place, etc. When it came to filming, we had to take many different shots from lots of different angles, a good number of times,
I am very pleased that we had this task to pull off. I feel like I have learnt a lot of things for life. I must say it has made me think into taking this subject for future reasons.
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