Evaluation

AS Level Re-sit

Our AS level project was to create a 2 minutes opening to a thriller. The thriller opening
must encourage a target audience to watch the rest of the thriller, including conventions
of a thriller as well as the production name and sub-heading titles. We researched in to
thrillers making sure our film opening was relevant to the thriller genre, looking into
popular narratives and generic signifiers.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
The title and genre of the film is crucial to addressing and attracting the target audience
into watching the film. The genre attracts teenagers, as well as the title ‘Entity’ aiming to
the late teenagers and making the film more mature, therefore to the teenagers, more
appealing.
We used techniques when editing to show different places within the film. For example,
from the editing, the outside shots have a blur effect
to show a blurry vision and the constant watching
from the murderer. We also have transitions used to
show the link form outside to inside the house, with
the shot from the outside of the door to the inside
in the lounge. This is typical of thriller’s to add to
the slow pace and the suspense of the narrative. The
slow transition builds tension, stretching the
storyline and action.
Our thriller has continuous tension building. This
relates to the film, When a Stranger Calls (2006)
when linking to the phone calls. The phone calls and the door knocking create a link
between these two thrillers, presenting a mystery and secrecy to the film.
Our film has the expectations of a thriller, tension building: the constant knocking at the
door with no one being there, jumpy moments: the knocks, as well as the murderer
coming in through the back door and including a real
life situation: being home alone. We also used a typical
thriller scenario, using the mystery character looking in
and spying from the outside on their victim which is
also used in When a Stranger Calls (2006).
As our thriller comes more under the Drama and
Psychological Thrillers, rather than the action thrillers,
the conventions are very similar and appropriate. The
pace of the opening is slower, showing indicating the
protagonist developing emotionally. Like other Drama
and psychological thrillers, the build up is slow,
progressing to a fast paced ending. The opening of our thriller can result in a twist within
the remaining film. It also develops the conventions of the female orientation, as the
actresses and the real life situations aim towards a female orientated audience. We also
used high level angles, panning and tracking shots to build tension. This fits in with other
thrillers, as it tracks a character showing a character stalking another, building tension
from the target audience.
We challenged the conventions by bringing a mini-climax of the psychological thriller
closer to the beginning. This differs from most thrillers, as the build up of tension is
stretched to last along time before the first part of action. However, this can be left to
develop in to a twist and build up to another climax later in the thriller.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We used the stereotypical girls, not focusing on race or gender though the main character
is a girl. The target audience age 16-19, with the typical situation for those of the social
group. It is a situation many girls can relate to.
We haven’t placed any emphasis on the race of the characters, however asking about the
pizza boy’s attractiveness suggests they are heterosexual therefore representing their
sexuality. We cast stereotypical teenage girls as our protagonists
to relate to our target audience because it allows the audience to
relate to the situation of being alone. We cast a male antagonist
because females are scared of men, representing gender through
the fear and contrast between the genders.
The story is being told from the point of view of the three girls,
home alone, with knocks on the door from a stranger, then
following to who looks to be the
murderer. This means the feelings and views are of the
girls. It is being told to teenagers who may be in the same
age range and may have been or in the future be, in the
same situation therefore representing age.
It is aimed more at the middle class/lower class, groups D
and E audiences with a sense for mystery and real life
circumstances as it shows real life situations for the class
and at the generation of teenagers. Our movie is filmed from a “fly on the wall” point of
view; therefore it has been made to look as though the audience is in the scene watching
as an onlooker.

What kind of media institute might distribute your media product and why?
Our production would more likely to be distributed by the mainstream institute as the
situation can occur in a real life situation, it is familiar with masses, whether they have
experienced the situation or not, they are still able to feel empathy and become involved
in the drama. These institutes are popular and well-known by audiences.
Fox Movies could be an institute that distributes our film. It is distributed films such as
Hide & Seek (2005) and Shutter (2008) both films, along with our film share the thriller
genre’s success. If we were going to publish our film we would hope to release it on the
same sort of scale as these films.
Fox movies would be a beneficial distributer as the films released already are very
popular and well known with audiences as well as relative to our thriller. With a good
background and solid audience, the thriller would be advertised well through social and
peer groups. With the success the previous thrillers have produced, Fox Movies, being a
mainstream institute, could afford to distribute another thriller, new to an audience, with
the knowledge of a high reputation. As well as this, it would be digitally and globally
distributed, increasing the viewings and profits of the film.
Screen gems could be another institution that distributes our thriller. The institution has
already distributed films such as When a Stranger Calls (2006), and The Step Father
(2009), both similar thrillers to our opening. This institution would be good to distribute
our thriller as it has digitally screened many other thrillers similar to ours which are
popular and well known.
We could also distribute our film through an independent company. This could produce
benefits of larger profits with the same advertisement, however, it would be cheaper to
distribute.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience would be late teenagers, young adults, the ages reflecting the girls and
boys in the film. This would most appeal to males and females of around 15 to late
teenage years. This is because the girls that appear in the film are aged 15 – 17. With this
age group, it creates more tension in the film, and a more frightening experience for the
audience. It would be a female orientation reflected in most thrillers, appealing to a broad
female audience, due to including real life situations and showing less gore and horror. I
would aim the thriller at an audience group D or E, showing a working class audience,
one that can relate and enjoy the thriller.
With other thrillers a certain aspect or event in the film is most remembered and have an
effect on the audience, for example, Psycho (1960). Wee would hope to have this same
reaction to our film with a sleepover or an event similar to the one in our movie.
It is aimed at the middle class/lower class with a sense for mystery, tension and real life
situations.
It would be a class D or E, aiming at working class audiences, with a feminine emphasis.
This was due to the research on thrillers, showing a female orientation for thriller
audiences, addressing the fear and anxiety from an easily frightened audience.
From my feedback, I have achieved this target audience, as the audience viewers asked
gave positive feedback on the enjoyment for the thriller. Aiming the thriller at a target
audience with a similar age or working class to those in the
film itself help to promote the thriller, by reflecting on real
life situations and fear of that particular age and femininity.
However, the thriller is similarly aimed at males, producing
fear and tension from a wider audience. This proves the
thriller to be of an open target audience, appealing to working
class males and females as well as females the same age as the
characters in film itself. As well as this, it proves the class
social groups to be accurate and beneficial to the film in our target audience. The
outcome of 100% enjoyment of the opening is encouraging for the rest of the filmed to
be watched if it was produced.
The age certificate will be a 15. This follows the thriller certificates already produced.
Psychologically thrillers are usually 15, although action thrillers such as Casino Royale
(2006), psychosocially have a different reaction on the audience, more fear and suspense
rather than adrenalin.

How did you attract/ address your audience?

We attracted our audience by using transitions and effects to enhance the genre of
thriller, and keep the tension throughout the opening of our film.
We attracted and addressed our audience by introducing the movie production, the
directors and actors to include them in the opening and make them aware of the
characters within the film. We also attracted our audience through Face book or
MySpace as our main ways of advertising. This is due to our target audience and the
social life of our target age group. We used radio and television adverts, or pre adverts on
the cinema to promote our movie, as well as simple billboards and posters.
The attraction of blur from the outside view and transitions of zooming in and through
and object kept the audiences attention and the build up to the ending of the opening.
Our use of a range of camera angles, shot reverse shot and 180 degree rule created a
variation of shots to attract the audience.
We addressed our audience through the genre our film represented. The thriller genre
addressed the audience and there personality by suiting their culture or personality of
film. The use of the common themes in a genre, (a sleep over, knocking on the door, a
mysterious persona) is all included in our film to attract our target audience. It is more of
a life-like thriller, in which the target audience would relate to it, as what could be, a
realistic situation being in the house on your own with mysterious knocks at the door. It
shows a moral to the audience through not handling the situation alone, when the girl
decides to call her parents. This attracts people to watch it by watching what could
happen in a real life situation when someone is alone. It therefore addresses the audience
resulting in a reaction of fear and alarm for the audience.
In addition to this, we used generic signifiers of a thriller, attracting them through objects
and familiar occurrences in thrillers, for example the use of a knife, or being home alone.
As well as this the slow pace and darkness as a generic signifier attracts the audience,
whilst addressing the slow paced thriller.
From our feedback, we managed to be successful in attracting and addressing out
audience as they enjoyed the film and found positive aspects in the transitions and silence
at points (a common signifier in a thriller). This is found in the question referring to
music.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this
product?
I have learnt about both Hardware and Software technologies. The construction includes
both the planning, filming, editing and presenting the project. During the planning and
presenting I used Google tools to research in to the genre of a thriller. I also learned how
to use Scribd whilst presenting the planning and other documents on the blog. This blog
is another aspect of technology I had never used before; however, it was simple and easy
to use. We used it to produce who, in the group, had performed which task. It was easy
to upload documents and embed films or YouTube clips. It helped by showing all of the
work we had produced either by using Keep and Share, or Scribd.
During the filming of the project, we used hardware, including the computer itself as well
as one camera. This camera was used for both handheld filming as well as positioned on
a tripod for stability. For the editing of the film footage, we used Adobe Premier 7. This
was useful software, enabling us to cut shots, adds music as well as adds transitions and
text. However, the computers struggled with the new software, making the editing
process slow and time-consuming.
Our editing produced a problem when finding and rearranging shots. The clips for our
film had to be changed into a different format to be able to use in the movie software we
were using. This meant, so some of our clips we needed to retrieve our shots from the
back up folder in order to change the format before renaming the file.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
From the preliminary task to the final product, I have
learnt about planning and organising time, camera
angles to create effects and attract the audience, how
the genre has a massive impact or the target audience and how common things in a
specific genre are expected to crop up. I learnt how effective shot movement and
transitions can be, such as panning, tracking, and zooming and the effect of the blur, can
show the audience to primary actor, action or setting. As well as this, from the
progression from my preliminary task, I was able to see the difference between the
handheld filming and tripod filming, each having a different effect on the audience. The
handheld is effective when showing the film from the actor’s point of view, resulting in
the audience becoming that specific actor and viewing exactly what and how the actor is
seeing it. The tripod produces stability for the camera, with a much clear and steady shot.
In addition, I learnt the importance of Continuity, making sure the film still flows well
even thought the camera position had moved. This is important for my thriller film when
switching between shots and switching rooms or closing doors in to the next room. It is
important to make sure the action is fluent and fast paced in contrast to the slow pace of
the tension building.
I have also learnt how to combine the credits with a camera shot or part of the filming to
create a thriller effect as well as combining both to save the timing of the opening. This is
used in many films, showing the director and main actors within the first few shots.
I have also learnt how a group can be used to save time and move on with a task. Within
a main task, there are sub-tasks all that need to be completed to produce the final
product. When in a group, these tasks can be done by different members of the group,
saving time as well as building the Gantt chart tasks people have done.
Organising actors was challenging. However, when filming during the Christmas holiday,
our timing for the date was accurate and our actors were able to perform and be filmed.
Although we were short of members in our group, members in our group were able to
film and act as well as the other directors in the group and the actors around the scene.

There were a numerous differences between our preliminary task and the full product,
including the transitions during the editing, the experimenting with the hand held
camera, as well as the movement of the camera around a house and not in a stationary
spot for a long period of time. We also used more credits and the movement of credits
over a longer period of time, overlapping several shots at a time. This made the opening
better as we could show the film at the same time as producing the scenes. In addition,
we were able to introduce the characters whilst setting the scene and producing panning
shots before the characters were shown on scene. As well as this we used more
technologies, for example we used two cameras to be able to film more shots as well as
one shot from different angles. We also used more effects, the blur when outside which
was to great effect when presenting a stalking image of the antagonist from the outside.

Survey Results
To analyse the success of our opening thriller, we created a survey for the target audience
asking them a variety of questions to receive feedback on the full product. Our feedback
was very positive, resulting in most questions being answered optimistically on more than
one question. The only questions were to do with the editing of the movie, including
better music and using various transitions. This is good feedback as we could improve on
it if we had more time for our thriller.

The multiple choice answers yes and no provided a simple straight forward survey with
the text answers to get ideas and more information.
The questions asked were relevant to each section of our film to provide us with a wide
range of results and opinions.
This survey helped us to view our film from the audience’s perspective. It helped us to
see improvements we could have made if we had more time, as well as changes we would
have made whilst filming and if we were doing the project again. These improvements,
using more sound effects or adding an aspect to the storyline would be changes to a new
project.
We would use this information to create a better and more attracting thriller. Using ore
relevant music, voice over’s and slowing the pace of the thriller rather than challenging
the conventions. We would also change the credits font and entrance to make it more
relevant to the thriller, using a fading effect. We would also use different transitions,
including the fading to black, or a quicker change when the action is present. These
transitions could also be slowed down to match the pace of the storyline and build
tension.

In conclusion the project has proved to be successful through the feedback of our target
audience. The Thriller 2 minute opening produced uses and develops the conventions of
a thriller, including specific generic signifiers as well as narratives and characters. The
target audience has been addressed and attracted to the film, as well as includes various
camera angles and camera transitions.