Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our production company name was ‘JEM Productions’. This is because it has the initials of each of our names: Jessica, Elizabeth and Mia. It is also very simple and memorable, and therefore sounds professional. Other production companies have been named after their founders like Warner Brothers and Disney. The fact that our company would have this in common with other successful ones also makes it sound more proficient. Our production ident was a picture of one of each of our eyes. I am really pleased with how this turned out because it is simple, each of us is part of it, it has colour and is visually striking. I also think that it is suitable because one or two of the eyes are open quite wide as if the people are scared of something, and I think this is appropriate because it shows that the genre of film we make is thriller.  A real production company that has a similar ident to ours is ‘Icon Productions’. The similarity is that the main image is an eye. I think that the idea of using an eye has come about because they portray emotion and also part of films is seeing what is happening on screen.

A production company is responsible for making money to spend on producing films. They also manage the budget, the script, scheduling, staff, distribution and marketing. Production companies are often associated with particular actors, directors or crew members so can get these people working on certain projects. Some directors will have contracts with the company so will be asked to direct certain movies of theirs. If things go wrong during the production of a film they will make decisions of how to sort it out and get things back on track. The company makes money from sales of a film and the more money they make, the more they can spend on the next movie.

 

I think that the Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. production company would be a good choice of distributor for our thriller film.  They produce different kinds of entertainment like movies, television and music and are owned by the larger company Time Warner. The headquarters of the company are in Burbank, California and New York. It has many other minor companies including Warner Bros. Studios, Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television and Warner Bros. Animation. The founders of the company were the four Warner brothers Albert, Harry, Sam and Jack and it was started up on April the 4^th, 1923

Warner Bros. is versatile as they have produced films of many different genres. Some are fantasies (Harry Potter, The Hobbit) some superhero films (The Dark Knight, Man of Steel) and some comedies (The Hangover, The Campaign). They have produced many thriller movies as well including: Texas Chainsaw, Se7en, and V for Vendetta, Dirty Harry, Dead Calm, The Departed, Argo and many more. 








I think that Warner Bros. would be an appropriate institution to distribute my film because it has produced so many successful thriller movies in the past. As they have been so successful in this genre I could trust that they would know how to market the movie to the correct audience and make a lot of money from it. I also think it is a suitable company because they produced many films that I really like: Goodfellas, The Shining, and One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Shawshank Redemption, The Hobbit, Zelig and Best in Show. Even though these are not all thriller films, by knowing that I have really enjoyed films from this company would let me know that we would have a similar artistic vision for my film. They are also a very well-known company and audiences will recognise the name and hopefully be encouraged to see the film if the company’s name is attached to it because they trust them. The money used to finance my film would have come from profits of a previous film made by the production company. I think that the company being American is a good choice because America is the home of so many iconic films and it is such a large country and therefore will have a bigger market to distribute the film to.   

 

Professional Opening Credits	Opening Credits for Our Opening
Name of the production company	JEM Productions
Director	Camerawork by Jessica Hammond
Title of film	Directed by Elizabeth Pattison
Lead cast	‘The Girl’ played by Mia Shaw
Supporting cast	The Revelation
Casting Director
Music Composer
Costume designer
Associate producers
Editor
Production designer
Director of photography
Executive producer
Producer
Writer
Director

We looked at the order that opening credits will usually go in for films. The production company name will almost always come first so this is where we put it. We then had the two main production roles: camerawork and directing. I think that these two should probably have been the other way round as the director’s name will usually come before, but we thought perhaps we would do it this way because it would then follow the JEM initials. The actress’ name came after this, and we had the title of our film right at the end of the end of the opening, which happens quite often in thrillers. Obviously, we missed out quite a lot of the titles because there were only three of us working on the film.

'The Revelation' sound track

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

 

We decided that the target audience for our media product would be teenagers and they would be mostly male. We decided this from the feedback to our questionnaires because the psychological sub-genre of thrillers was said to be a popular one, especially among teenagers. So we thought that by creating a psychological thriller we would have a clear target audience that we would be aiming towards during the whole process. Also males tend to prefer thrillers in comparison to females who tend to prefer more thoughtful films that are not violent. However I do think that our opening would be enjoyed by some girls as well because there are elements of it that would appeal to them, for example the female lead that they can empathise with and relate to.

Target Audience Profile

We researched our audience by giving questionnaires to various people, but mostly those of this age range who have these interests. We found out what they are interested in and what they expect in a thriller. We asked this age group because most of the people that the three of us spend time with and know a lot about are teenagers or people in their early twenties. Also, as the three of us fall into this target group we would know what would be appealing. I think that the questionnaires were an effective way of finding out the information we needed because we could ask all of the necessary questions and people could have time to think about their answers.

Another method of research we used to find out about our target audience was by showing story boards to people who fitted into this target group and showing rough cuts of the film to them as well. This was also helpful because from this we would receive feedback about whether they thought the film was heading in the right direction and if it would be appealing to them. We made changes where they thought it would be necessary and we got positive comments also so we knew what was going well.



From our audience research, we learnt a lot about what their expectations were of the psychological thriller. We found out from the questionnaires that people expected the plot to have a twist in and they must be eerie and full of tension. They also said that there should not be many characters and not much dialogue in the opening, but that there should be tense music. A preference of theirs was to have props that could cause danger in the plot, like weapons. The props that turned out to be most popular in the questionnaire suggested that our target audience is attracted by films with plenty of blood and gore.

In my opinion, our movie would fall into the 12 age certificate from looking at the BBFC guidelines. The only aspect of our opening that may be questionable in suitability for an audience would be the violence. The guidelines for the violence in a 12 film states that ‘moderate violence is allowed but should not dwell on detail’. I think our film would fit well into the criteria because the violence is not in too much detail. In the shot where we see the girl was wounded by the bullet, you do not actually see the injury because it’s covered by the girl’s hands. All the viewer can see is blood around it. Wounds also cannot be seen in the images of the dead bodies, just blood and by the BBFC guidelines it is acceptable to have ‘occasional gory moments’. This may impact which age group would watch our film. The intended age group of the viewers of our film was going to be from 16-25 but it may harder to get people of this age to watch it if they see it is of the 12 certificate. However this may also broaden our target audience because it would appeal to a younger age range as well as our intended group.  

Question 5: How did you attract/ address your audience?

From looking at the responses to our questionnaire I learnt what the audience expected from this chosen sub-genre. We gave questionnaires to people who fit into our target audience so we were certain that we had relevant information for making our opening appealing for them. The responses showed that the most important conventions for them were little or no dialogue, tense music and only one or two main characters. We addressed this by making sure the character does not speak and the use of tense music would ensure it would not be silent and the sound would make a suspenseful atmosphere. The religion sub-genre was also popular on our questionnaire though, and this encouraged us to include a religious undertone. We showed this through the antagonist being obsessed with the Bible, the religious connotations of the title, the bible pages in the room, etc. This information was very useful because we would know what to include in order to make the thriller opening successful. We ensured that we included the conventions that came out as the most popular because this would mean it would be more likely for our target audience to enjoy it. In the open-ended question about why people like their chosen thriller sub-genre, one of the responses was ‘they usually have plot twists that make the end difficult to guess’. This inspired us to have the plot twist of the character assumed to be the protagonist, being shot at the end of the opening. Two other responses were ‘I find them exciting because they are eerie to watch’ and ‘I love the tension of a psychological’. Eeriness and tension are main themes for maybe all sub-genres of thriller, so it was obvious that we would try hard to create a tense and eerie atmosphere.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

On the day of the shooting, we learnt a lot about techniques with the digital camera. The biggest issue we had was that we would position the camera for a certain shot, but then when we pressed record the framing would change and a lot of what we wanted was missed out. This caused us to do a lot more test shots so that we would know how much we needed to adjust how zoomed in the lens was. We also learned to be cautious when filming handheld shots. We found it very important to have a steady hand when doing these and to keep them to a minimum, as if done badly then they can look quite unprofessional. However, I found that a handheld shot we used looked really effective because we knew we had to keep the camera very still.

 

 

We also learnt a lot about the effectiveness of particular shots, i.e. of different distances. We found that mid shots were useful in showing the girl’s expression clearly while also showing what is happening around her. We used this shot a lot to show the girl getting closer to the room and closer to her death. We staggered these shots with extreme close ups of the photos in the room and the doll’s face which is very useful to show details. This gave the meaning that she was being watched by the doll and that strange things have happened in this house before from looking at the photos. We used only one close up of the girl and I think this made it even more dramatic when it is shown. It occurs as she is shot and it is done to see the reaction and stunned expression of the girl. We did film shots of much greater distance- extreme long shots, long shots, but these dragged out the opening too much so we chose to cut them.

 

We end the opening with a fade to black on the title: ‘The Revelation’. The fade gives time for the viewer to see that the doll’s foot is in shot, so she has been moved but we do not know who by. The slow fade just gives a bit longer for us to look at the title and to think about what had just happened. If this was a full length movie, the fade to black would signify the end of the opening and where the next part of the story would begin- in a different location with new characters.

 

The equipment was something that I learnt more about through the filming. The tripod was used to keep the camera stable and if we wanted to have a panning shot it would help to make it smoother. We used it for this purpose for the shot of the girl seeing the bloody newspaper, and the use of the tripod just made the movement less jagged. The lighting was another thing that was important to consider because we had to ensure that it wouldn’t be too dark so viewers couldn’t see what was happening. We found that the natural light from outside- because it was a bright enough day- was perfect for the tone of the film, because it was quite dark inside but there was enough light to see clearly. When we did use light that was not natural it was when the girl entered the room full of rubbish and strange props and the girl turns the light on, because the room was just too dark to not have the light on. A valuable lesson we learnt from the day of filming and the process of editing was the importance of continuity. We had a problem in filming when we realised we had forgotten to have the actress wearing the bracelet throughout the opening and we had to re-film one or two shots so that it would make sense when the girl is wearing it later. We also ensured that the girl used the same foot on certain steps so there would be no continuity problems with this. In editing, we had to consider which foot the girl had ended on in certain shots so we knew where to start in the next one.

It was important to learn how to upload footage onto a Mac so we could edit it. You have to connect the SD card from the camera into the computer and create an event for it to go into. We could then drag and drop footage into the project for editing. Part of this process was knowing which footage we should use. Some of the framing of shots was wrong so parts were cut out or things were in that we didn’t intend to be. The camera moved when it shouldn’t have and in one of them the tripod could be seen so we could obviously not use it.  Length of shots was important because the opening should have not been too much longer than two minutes. Some of the shots were too long so we had to trim them down and in some cases speed them up slightly so they did not drag on too long, but we would still keep everything that happened in the shot. 

 

I gained a lot of knowledge about various techniques that wecould use on 

iMovie for the editing as well. We found the cross disolves and fades to white very effective for our style of thriller. Below is an example of the cross dissolve transition. We used it to go from the present- the girl we are following- to a parallel storyline of the photos in the room. We chose to use this because it can give the impression of a flashback or memory and it would be interesting for the time we are seeing to change from one to another. I also think that the dissolve caused a really interesting composition. For a moment, the photo of the dead girl appears in the centre of the door that the girl in the dress is coming through. Similar to how these girls wear the same coloured clothes, I feel that this shot is used to foreshadow that this girl is soon to be killed as well.

 

The screenshot below shows an example of when we used a fade to white. It was used many times when we had the flashes of the various photos of the room. It helped to make the flashes more sudden and this was important for what we were trying to- and feel we did- achieve for the editing in this part. We wanted to give the meaning that we are seeing from the girl’s perspective in her last moments of life. Inspired by the shower scene in ‘Psycho’, we wanted to have a contrasting pace by having the very quick flashes of the images to the longer shots after the girl is shot (the close-up of her face, her lying on the floor etc). The very quick cuts make the peak of the shooting more shocking as it builds up to it.  I think that the very short fades to white are similar to the flashing of a camera, making it more punchy and fast-paced.

 

 

 

We had to learn a lot about sound on iMovie so we could cut it so it fit with the right moments, for example when the girl sees blood in the house for the first time - on the newspaper- there is a sudden jolt in the music to show that tension is really starting to rise. It took a while to move this sound into the right place because it was slightly off, coming in too early or late. We found some of our sound effects on the internet and we made some ourselves, so we had to learn how to put them on certain shots and how to shorten them or change the volume. We also muted all of the clips so all that could be heard were the non-diegetic sounds. The only times we used diegetic sound was the door slam, the light switch  and the girl gasping when she is shot because it is obviously the right timing with the reaction and the sounds themselves was of good quality. Non-diegetic we used was the gunshot and the thudding when she enters the room. These were important to add so what was happening would make sense; without the shot you would not know she’d been shot and without the thudding you wouldn’t know why she was shocked. Other non-diegetic sounds were the high-pitched whistling music, the ghostly howling and the heartbeats. These were vital in creating the tension because they sound eerie as they are strange and the heartbeats show how frightened the girl is. 

 

The two screenshots below demonstrate the filter effect we used. It was called ‘Bleach Bypass’. We used it because we felt it was effective in creating an eerie atmosphere. It made most of the colours a lot more dull and shadowy so the redness of the blood more bold and stand out more.  This makes it more of a shock when the girl first sees the newspaper covered in blood from under the door. I am also very happy with the effect because it makes the blood look more realistic. The fake blood we used was very good, but looked slightly too light and the filter effect helped to make it darker, therefore more realistic.

 

The only shot that we did not use the effect for is the shot seen in the picture on the left, above. If we put the effect on this shot then it would have been too dark to see what is going on. We split this shot so as soon as she turns the light on we would then put on the effect. I think that this is quite unusual because as she turns the light on, the room almost seems to get darker. This moment is quite surprising and confusing for the audience which is conventional for the genre because it should not be predictable. Even if it seems like the room has got darker, it works in the film because it is supposed to be nightmarish. Above on the right you can see the shot after the light and the bleach bypass effect have been put on.  

 

I was very pleased with the composition of some of our shots. From our research into other psychological thriller openings we learnt how effective use of golden mean and rules of thirds can be. A very good example of the golden mean is the very first shot of our opening. It is the blood-covered hand going diagonally across the screen, and this fits the golden mean perfectly. I also like that the bracelet is the centre of the way down the screen, making it a more poignant part of the image.

The rule of thirds is used to highlight important parts of a shot. The girl character is usually central, falling into the middle third while the other two are taken up with background. The grid shows where important parts of the shot are, and you can see that the girl’s startled expression is in the middle square.




 

In this shot the girl takes up two thirds while the doll takes up the last one. The doll’s head falls perfectly into the square the middle of the way down. This is a shot that I think looks really good because the doll seems to be watching from the side rather threateningly.

We had to make changes to the structure of the narrative through editing so that the plot would stay exciting to the audience. The plot was quite linear to begin with as it just showed a girl walking towards a house gradually. But by having cuts to images of dead bodies and blood it brought another dynamic to the plot that would make the audience eager to continue. The high pitched sounds that we added also built tension because it sounded quite like screaming or ghost-like howling. Some of the noises gave the idea that there was someone else in the building with the girl.



 

Putting in titles/credits was another thing I learnt about on iMovie. We chose a font that looked quite old-fashioned and formal -Baskerville- which I found fitted in well with parts of the film like the style of the house, the doll and the dress.

Once we were happy and had decided that our opening was complete we had to put it onto a disk and choose a DVD selection menu. When we had done this we had to upload it on to Youtube where we could then put it onto our blogs. Blogger is a website that I was not familiar with before so I had to learn a lot about putting on posts, videos, images and presenting them well. I found Blogger to be an effective tool for research and planning because I could organise our preparation like storyboards and shot lists and it was easy to look back on my thriller research. I think that Wordle was also a really effective way of brainstorming ideas or a list of certain subjects because it is interesting to look at and can have a lot of information.

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

I think that I have developed in many ways as a film maker from creating our preliminary video- ‘The Exchange’- to our thriller opening- ‘The Revelation’. I feel I have learnt more about what sorts of shot look good and ones that are difficult to do well. For example I think handheld shots are difficult and should be kept to a minimum because if they are too shaky or uneven then it will look amateurish. We used quite a few of these in the preliminary not realising how shaky it would look.

I also think that panning shots should not last for too long, because in our prelim we had a lot of feedback saying that our panning shot lasted too long, and this did not help the tension. We included a couple of panning shots in our completed opening because I do think they look good but we just ensured they weren’t too drawn-out. I think that it is important to take pace into account as well, because the pace in our prelim stayed on the same level. Our completed opening was not like this as the shots started quite slow, getting shorter and quicker. They then became very short and snappy for the build-up of the shooting and the few after that were slower, to allow the audience to think about what happened. Another thing I feel we improved upon was the credits. In our prelim they were much too fast and difficult to read. The font also wasn’t right, but this time around the credits were more gradual and were a memorable part of the film as opposed to something put in at the end. We took our time with them, giving each name a few seconds and an image to go with it. The font was improved because it was suitable for the tone of the opening.

I feel that a strong point of our preliminary film was the range of shots we used and the framing of them. The shots of feet, hands and the mouth were more interesting than just seeing the whole picture. We built on this for ‘The Revelation’ by having even more interesting shots- the ones from higher angles, the one of her feet walking through the rubbish and the over the shoulder shot of the message in the Bible. I think that these shots were composed well too because the feet/hand were always the clear focus point of the shot.

 

I think that we followed the 180˚ rule well in both the preliminary and our production. We made sure that we did not cross the line in either, and I think this is clear because in both films the camera is following a character going somewhere. This could have caused problems as there is a lot of moving around and it would have been easy to make a mistake. I believe we avoided it though because both of the films make sense from that perspective. I also feel that we were quite successful with match on action in the prelim, especially the part when a character is hit on the head with a bag of sweets. When the bag is thrown it is at the right level for when it hits her making it look like it was one shot when we actually filmed it quite a few times. We expanded on our match on action skills for our production, seen in parts when the bible is opened, a door is opened and when the girl is walking up the stairs. Shot reverse shot was not used so much in our production, as there was not a typical moment where it would be used, like for a conversation. A place where we did have this though was when the girl hears the door slam the first time. We see her coming in throught the door, then her looking back at the door and then from inside the corridor again. We did follow the rules of shot reverse shot here because the girl is in the right place and the sequence flows well, even though this was not a complex example of the technique.

My editing skills have improved because I have learnt  about more of the transitions on iMovie and where they can be used effectively in a film. I have also improved in cutting down clips so we have what we really need and each part is interesting rather than having unnecessary shots that drag on. I think that putting in sound effects and music was probably the part of the editing that I improved the most on, because I experimented a lot with sounds and learned more about how to change the length of the music and how to cut it down.



I feel that we were very well planned for our production which can be seen through the brainstorming of ideas, the storyboards and the shot lists.  Also, we got feedback from people looking at the storyboards so we knew what else we may want to add. In the story boards we had rough drawings that would show the framing of shots 
and below we had a brief of what was happening and the name of the shot used. In our shot lists, for each of our shots we included:  the location, shot description, framing, action, sound effects, actors, props and notes. The preparation was very useful because we knew exactly what we were doing on filming day. We were quite prepared for our prelim, but we did not get audience feedback for our planning, so we could not be sure whether it would definitely be appealing or be sure if people thought it looked good or not.



If I were to re-film our thriller opening, I would have looked into writing the names for the credits on the photos seen or on pieces of paper. This would be interesting because it would look like it was in the world of the film as opposed to text added in after. This would also improve the film  because I feel that the font doesn't look quite right and we could make one that suited the theme of the film more.  Also with the effect we used it sometimes looked like the film was in black and white and other times looked more sepia.  If there was a way to make this more consistent I would do this to improve it. Lastly, I would edit the sound at some points. For example, there is a moment when the girl is walking towards the bloody newspaper and the music stops for a moment and for a split second you hear the start of what would originally happen next in the music, which we cut out. This was a mistake and  I think it sounds wrong when watching the film. Overall though, I was really happy with our final result and think that it meets our intentions and would be enjoyed by our target market.