Audience feedback

Our finished media product:

'The woods'

We gathered our audience feedback using the PURE Digital Flip Mino F360 Camcorder - 0.31 MP - Black. This is a minature hand-held camcorder which made the process of filming our audience feeback very simple and effective.

The following videos entail the other groups in our media AS group telling us both positive and negatives of our project and if anything is unanswered, my group asking questions:
1)



2)




3)

From wathcing the audience feedback videos and personal opinions i feel that the biggest issue in our film was the continuity, all of the groups acknowledged the issue my group encountered involving an orange plastic bag which appeared in one scene and then disappeared. Despite being given the audience feedback on our rough cut I was unable to make the desired changes regarding the orange plastic bag as re-filiming at this late a stage was not an option so the bag remains in the film.

On a positive the feedback allowed us to change some of the shots used as the audience did not favour the POV shots we used or the switching from POV to normal camera shots. It also allowed us to adapt the audio according to what the groups thought. Other than the previous issue mentioned our project appeared to have a lot of positive revolving around the camera work and every group managed to successfully recognise the genre and one person even said that a part of the film 'scared' them. None of the feedback we recieved was entirely negative, this along with the encouraging feedback gave my media group, 'JAMS', the motivation to make the needed changes to the project. The other positives we gathered were that our establishing shots worked well and fitted with the genre and introduced the main protagonist, fulfilling conventions of an opening sequence.

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

1) In terms of the editing in my preliminary task, it was minimal - very little if anything in each shot was done to the audio as it was not the main focus of our task, the only parts we really edited were the cuts from shot to shot to ensure there were no jump cuts and to ensure the continuity of our film remained at a high standard as this is what the task focused on. In the process of editing there is also logging and capturing which are vital as the editing relies on the useage of the footage which is transferred from the camcorder to the editing suit in the process of capturing and the decision of which shots to use out of the many that have been filmed is also important, this is the process of logging.

2) In our final coursework task the editing was much more complex, the first thing we focused on after completing the capturing and logging was getting a 'rough cut' done, this did not include music or the universal countdown, it literally involved putting the shots into the desired order and roughly cutting them. After the 'rough cut' was completed, we moved onto the details of the editing, ensuring that the audio was clear, the case in a lot of our shots was that the background noise was relatively over powering due to the fact that we had filmed outside on windy/rainy days. To fix this we lowered the sound levels where the background noise was too loud and in some cases even edited a quieter audio part from a different shot into the shot it was needed in. Next we make sure that there were no jump cuts in our final product and put in the universale countdown and the titles into it.

3)I personally believe that both myself and my group have progressed in is the filming process, in our preliminary task the lack of communication between the group made the entire process a lot more difficult than it had to be, as a group everything we poorly organised everything and this even meant that some days that we were scheduled to film members of the group did not show up this leading to the group falling behind in terms of filming and in the creation of the pre-production documentation. Our final task was handled differently by the group I was in and the task altogether ran smoother and tasks were accomplished quicker, we all communicated well together and this meant that not only did the tasks get done quicker but towards the end of the task the atmosphere was relaxed and pleasent. Also, due to the fact that we had previously learnt how to use the tripods and cameras the filming process was made easier, we knew what equiptment we needed and how to use it.

4) The final thing that I feel I have learnt from the progression from the preliminary task to the final coursework task is about the blogging, although I did blog my preliminary work the final coursework task has taught me that in order for the blogs to be successfully presented they need visuals aids as well as written context. To achieve this I decided to add more images and videos into my blog where possible.

 

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

Technologies

1) Adobe premiere pro: The programme that we used to edit out footage.
- The programme once introduced to us became gradually easier to use each time editing occurred, it also became more complex as we learnt different techniques to use and different things we could achieve with the available tools.

2) Digital camera: Used to take the photos for our location reccees and the blogs.
- The camera was a basic camera, not used for the quality of the photos but as a simple tool that was compact and easy to carry to locations.

3) Blogger: The way in which we submit our coursework to the examiners.
- Eblogger also confusing at first is a simple, user friendly way in which the post public blogs. The website includes several other opportunities to develop IT skills with the use of background layout designing and html coding.

4) Scanner: Used to transfer our written work onto the blogs.
- The HP scan was user friendly and simple to use, but the lack of them around the school made the scanning process a lot more challenging.

5) YouTube: Used to enable us to upload our projects to our blogs.
- A world-wide globally used website on which people can upload and watch a range of videos whilst receiving hits if videos they have chosen to upload are watched. Relatively simple to use but sometimes the quality and size of the videos were an issue.

6) Camcorder: We used a Sony camcorder to film the whole of our media projects.
- As having studied Media studies previously I had a rough idea of how to use most of the technologies give to me but after this task I can now confidently handle the video cameras, the digital cameras, work on the editing suite and use html coding on my blog.

How did you attract/address your audience?

As a group, 'JAMS', we used the building of suspense as real attraction to our target audience, the action that is seen in the opening sequence should essentially and desirably work as a 'wanting more' hook. We also used the 'thriller' genre but decided to try and appeal to a younger audience than we have established most films under this genre do. Our attempt to appeal to a younger audience was established through the use of teenage protagonists in order for our desired target audience to be able to associate, empathise and sympathise with more ease with the characters.


Also as a group we all played our project to several different audiences; luckily our target audience was the age range of our class to whom we played it to, we then also took our projects home to recieve feedback from atleast 5 different viewers at home. We recorded the results ourselves to save the time of the questionnaires. We attracted the audience in several different ways, firstly we attracted an audience into alternative rock music with the use of a local bands music 'Whiteharts'. 'Whiteharts' formed in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire in 2008 under the original outfit of Chasing Sunsets. The band comprises of vocalist Joe Bernie, guitarists Dan Giles & Oli Adams, bassist Ant Johnson, and drummer Matt Baron. The main way we attempted to attract the audience was through a gap in the market, in attempting to create a new style of film for the teen audience.

During the process of making our film we had to research and follow the BBFC website states age certifications for films/TV; after this we decide that our film would be a 15 certificate. The guidelines for a 15 certificate are stated below:
Discrimination:No endorsment of discriminatory language or behaviour will be present in the film.

Drugs:In the film drugs are permitted to be viewed but in no way must they be promoted to the audience or make the audience want to experience the taking of these drugs. Also its unlikely to be acceptable to show dangerous substances that are accessible to the audience being used incorrectly, for example mis-use of aerosols or solvents.There are no refrences to drugs or drug use in our film.
Horror:The audience are allowed to see strong threat and menace, however not if carried out in a sexualised or sadistic way. Imitable Behaviour: Any viewings of behaviour dangerous to the character (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) are not allowed to be shown in great detail to promote ideas to the audience of this behaviour.
The horror element of our film is minor in comparrison to the story line, the horror does not promote any ideas to the audience and is not sexualised or sadistic in any way.

Language:Strong language is acceptable to be used frequently, (for example 'fuck') however the stongest terms (for example 'cunt') are only permitted to used if it fits the context and can be justified by this. However when the use of strong language is repeated in an aggresive way its unlikely to be acceptable for this certification.There is no dialogue in the opening sequences, but as the film progresses strong language would be introduced.

Nudity:Without strong detail nudity is permitted if used in sexual context, more so there are no constraints in non-sexual or educational context regarding nudity.
There is not nudity in the contents our my media project.

Sex:Without strong detail sexual activity is permitted to be portrayed; strong verbal references to sexual behaviour are also allowed. However highly strong references are again unlikely to be permitted unless they can be justified by the context of the film. More so work that is solely purposful for sexual arousal or stimulation are again unlikely to be acceptable.There is no sexual content in our media project.

Theme:There are no themes that are not allowed as long as provided with appropriate treatment for 15 year olds.
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Violence:No infliction of pain or injury are allowed to be dwelled on when strong violence is used. Strong gory images and strong sadistic or sexualised violence are unlikely to be acceptable. Detailed verbal refernences to sexual violence are allowed but it must be discreet and be highly justified by the context.
There is a reasonable amount of violence involved in our media project however there is no strong gore and once again the violence is not sexualised or sadistic.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Target Audience

Target audience examples:

Danielle Hart

The is Danielle Hart, she is a pretty stereotypical 18 year old girl in full-time education at Kings Langley School sixth form, her interests include those of a normal teenage girl, spending time with her friends, shopping and socialising. When asked for a list of her five favourite films her response was somewhat of a suprise: Kill Bill, The Beach, The dark knight, the truman show and sex and the city. Her favourite films range in genre from a romantic chick-flick to horror/thriller, Danielle also contunied to express her interest in thriller films and visits to the cinema, she made it clear that she prefered viewing films when they came out in the atmosphere of the cinema over waiting for the films to be released to DVD or blu-ray. Although Danielle fits perfectly into the age range we would consider the ideal audience for our media product, we would have considered the audience to be more male than female but Danielle's taste in films makes our media product perfect for her.

Matthew Sawyer

This is Matthew Sawyer, he is an 18 year old boy who is similarly to Danielle in full-time education at Kings Langley sixth form. His interests include football and several other sports, he also enjoys drinking and socialising and trips to the cinema. When asked for a list of his five favourite films his response was what we expected: Football factory, Fight Club, Snatch, The Blair Witch Project and Blood diamond. Matthew enjoys social trips to the cinema and spending time with his friends once again over the new technology of blu-ray and DVD. Danielle fits perfectly into the age range we would consider the ideal audience for our media product, we would have considered the audience to be more male than female but Danielle's taste in films makes our media product perfect for her.

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

Media institution: A media institution is an established, often profit-based organization, that deals in the creation and distribution of advertising, entertainment and information services.The most well-known examples of media institutions would be 'The Hollywood 5'; this includes Sony, Paramount pictures and Warner Bros.

In order to decide as a group wich media institution would be best to distribute our media product we had to compare in detail several media institutions after doing so I personally came to the conclusion that the ideal institution would be Warner Brothers. Establish in 1923 and having distributed 'Under Siege', 'The Matrix' series and Lethal weapon, the genre thriller would not be something out of the ordinary for Warner Brothers.Warner Brothers would also be ideal due to their subsidary arms the promotion of our film would be easy;
· Lorimar television
· Telepictures productions
· Domestic television
· New World Television
· HBO
· Wolper Productions
· Tuner entertainment co.
· United Artists Television.

All of the studios previously mentioned are based in the US and are known and associated with 'blockbuster' films. Due to the fact that my film is a British film, due to the recent demolishment of 'The film council' and also widely due to the lack of wider world distribution offered in Britain I have chosen to rely on the US essentially to distribute my film.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Female Protagonist

'Kat Stratford', the female central protagonist from '10 Things i hate about you'. A strong minded young woman, whose views on school, stereotpyes and cliches are prominent and highly feminist. Comparable to Shakespeare's 'Katherine' from the taming of the shrew, she is equally as sharp-tounged, quick-tempered and prone of hostility.

Comparable to both 'Kat' and 'Katherine' is the nameless central protagonist in my opening sequences for 'The Woods'. Acting as a juxtaposition to a stereotypical female character, this character is a completely subversive strong female character. Similar to but a most extreme version of the characters previously compared with.

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Male Protagonist

'Cameron James', the male central protagonist from '10 Things i hate about you'. Another debatably subversive character, the meek and unconfident  in the way in which  minded young woman, whose views on school, stereotypes and cliches are prominent and highly feminist. Comparable to Shakespeare's 'Katherine' from the taming of the shrew, she is equally as sharp-tounged, quick-tempered and prone of hostility.

The yet again nameless male protagonist from the opening sequence of 'The Woods' is also similarly to 'Cameron' a not so stereotypical male. Although not much of his character is revealed it is clear that he is over-powered by someone, this showing the physical and mental weakness he has similarly to Cameron.

Aware of the fact that the two previous comparissons made were not characters from films under the thriller genre I later researched through independent study other characters from films from the appropriate genre that would be comparable with the two central protagonists from 'The Woods'.

The Hand That Rocked The Cradle
'Mrs Mott'

Starring in the film 'The hand that rocked the cradle' 'Mrs.Mott' or 'Peyton Flanders' is a seemingly perfect in terms of stereotyping female, she is attractive and helpful but secretly she is out to wreck the lives of the family she was supposed to be helping, during this process she subverts the female stereotpyes through her use of violence and her general power and status similarly to our namless female protagonist in 'The Woods'.

Mr. Bartel
From the same film the central male protagonist 'Mr.Bartel' the father in the family that is victimised by 'Mrs.Motts' is at first shown to be a very typical male, the 'bread winner' for his house-hold and married with children. He is later shown to be subversive is the sense that he is shown to by weak through both his physical over powerment by a female character, similarly to the male protagonist in 'The woods' and mentally through the sedcution of a female character.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We stuck to the codes and conventions of the thriller genre but tweeked it slightly, we kept our opening sequences relatively fast paced, using a range of shots all revolving around the central protagonist. We used and establishing shot at the beginning of our opening sequences to set the scene and create the correct atmosphere. We show Anthony, the protagonist alone and uneasy looking, this connotates the position of the character, he is completely alone.

Our opening sequences then continue with the main focus on Anthony, until we see the female 'killer' appear and walk towards Anthony on the opposite side of the path, she is represented as threatening through the lack of facial expression you can see and the manner in which she presents herself, she is hooded and does not acknowledge Anthony when they pass eachother. As a group we challenged the conventions of a thriller and a stereotypical murderer through using a female character as the protagonist and a male as the antagonist. This breaks the conventions it breaks how both males and females are stereotypically presented;

Women:

- Feble

- Phsyically and mentally weak

- Sexualised

- Motherly

- Caring

- Gentle

- Domestic

Our female protagnoist fits none of the above catagories.



Men:

- Physically and mentally strong
- Dominant
- Provider
- Brave
- Successful







We are not aware whether our male antagonist fits into most of these catagories other than brave, as the audience we can see he doesn't fit this one through his body language.
My project, the opening sequence to the film 'The Woods' both used and broke the typical codes and conventions of film opening sequences. We used appropriate and relatable colours when creating the titles, red was used due to an association with blood, this linking to the action occuring in the film and to the genre thriller. In relation to the titles, we also places them in conventional slots of the thriller genre.

Our opening sequence and film overall employed a change of relationships, the characters were both subversive to their gender stereotypes leaving the audience questioning their roles. During and after the production of our opening sequences there were debates over the 'POV' shots used us our filming, debatably there is the implication of someone being behind the male central protagonist during specific shots. This was not the desired effect at all but once we had begun editing and fully established what the 'POV' shot implies there was no time to refilm.

Post-production

Post-production

The main issues for my group were in the filming stages, this made this process both a slow and irritating part of our project. In order to get our media project up to scratch not only did we have to film out of time table, we had to re-film several scenes, several times out of time table. But once this was out of the way we began the editing process, my group had no problems with this phase of the project, both myself and Sam were able to confidently use the editing suite and show both Anthony and David how to use it too. We had a few minor glitches with editing but they were mainly down to the footage we had, it was difficult to get rid of all of our jumps and keep the continuity up to standard.

The background noise of our clips was the first thing we fixed, as there was no dialogue in our opening sequences we lowered the background noise in every scene other than the shot in which Anthony is hit over the head as we felt the background noise added to the atmosphere and helped create the 'thriller' element in our film. We then also added in music.

Production report

After finishing all of our pre-production work we were now ready to start the filming process, in order to successfully complete the filming during the time period we were given as a group we had to arrange filming slots that were not during our media lessons by checking what frees we all shared. We all managed to find some slots in which to film as well as the timetabled slots, we also came in on one day in half term to complete the parts of the filming that had not been completed to a satisfactory standard. We attampted to follow the shooting schedule but it was not followed completely due to people not showing up to film and not getting as many shots completed in the time slots we had. To begin filming we gathered the equiptment needed including the video camera, tri-pod and a reflector we had previously spent our class time making, we also took with us the shot list and the story board in order to get the correct shots needed. According to the shooting schedule we also shot the scenes in the incorrect order due to both people not turning up again and due to weather conditions. All of the filming got progressively better as we carried out filming and as a group engaged more with opinions on different shots and our understanding of the genre grew.

The footage we filmed on our last day of filming was the most successful, the footage was all very clear and the background noise was at a minimum unlike the rest of the shots, the weather was perfect for creating the desired atmosphere for our project and we had the longest amount of time in which to film. We took advantage of this and as well as filming what was needed we also re-filmed any shots we had doubts about. On this same day we began the editing phase of our project, we captured logged and began the inital stages of editing our footage, whilst doing so we realised that we had crossed the 180° rule otherwise known as 180 rule otherwise known as 'crossing the line'
180° rule - two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other.

We then changed shots in order to correct this major problem, we tried to do so without affecting the contuinuity of our project. Once having corrected all of the major problems we made a 'rough cut' of our film, gathered audience feedback and made the appropriate changes, unfortunately once again this meant re-filming for my group as we had not quite successfully pulled off the POV shots we had filmed.

Pre-production report and documentation

'JAMS', my media group for this coursework task chose to base our opening sequences on the thriller genre, other than the reasoning for chosing this genre previosuly explained in my blog 'Group meeting' we chose to use this genre because certain members of our group including myself had previous experience in creating media products of this genre. Also as previously mentioned in my blog 'Group meetings' we researched and then used codes and conventions of other thrillers styles to create our coursework piece, our main influence was 'The Blair Witch Project'.

'The Blair Witch Project': The narrative is presented as a documentary pieced together from amateur footage, filmed in real time. The film was produced by the Haxan Films production company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project

In our opening sequence there will only be two characters, the main focus is on 'Rory' (Anthony Johnson), the characters will be established in a range of shots including tracking and panning shots. There will be no dialogue in our film as the two characters only briefly 'meet' on their seperate walks through 'the woods', we believe that this lack of dialogue makes the opening sequence seem more realistic and gives it an overal more eerie atmosphere. Due to the lack of talking that will be feature in our product during the editing process we will focus especailly on enhancing the background noises and adding in music that will create the correct match-on-action. We have now proceeded to watch several 'thriller' films to make sure that all of our decisions match the conventions of a typical 'thriller', we found that 'The Silence Of The Lambs, 1991 follows a lot of the same conventions as our piece.

opening title of 'The Silence Of The Lambs'.

We started our pre-production work off with the writing of our treatment of which I did the majority of the work due to the fact that I had previous experience in writing treatments and was confident in doing the work. Despite myself doing the majoirty of the work, the rest of the group sat with me whilst I did so in order to give me verbal information and support incase I missed anything out and also to further their knowledge on writing treatments for next year. The next task we set out to complete was the 'shot list', this has to be done next as we needed the shot list to proceed in our task and to know exactly what we were going to film and how long for. The task of creating the 'shot list' was attributed mainly to David, although we left him to do this task, we stumbled across a problem when we got to the stages of filming, so the shot-list did had to be completely re-created, also due to fact that we had to film in the original time slot we had to shoot and then adapt the next part of the shot list ready for filming, this whole process because of this took us an elongated two weeks when infact we could have been filmed within a week.

The next step in our pre-production was to create our cast, crew, costume and equipment list which was by far the easiest part of all of the pre-production work as all it entailed was the creation of a list of the protagonists in the film (their character name and actual name), who did what in terms of filming, 'the filming crew' and the equiptment that what we needed make the film happen, including props. We did this piece of work as a group as it was easier for us all to have an input whilst one person types as this piece of work took the least work and research.
Our risk assessment was next to be created, this was done by myself and Sam as he was confident in identifying and how best to solve the risks. Due to the fact that we were filming in woods near our school there were a lot of risks to identify. Once we had completed the risk assessment we looked over it as a group and added in and changed accoridng to other members of the groups ideas. We have no script in our pre-preduction as there was no dialogue and therefore no need for a script.

The penultimate part of our pre-production work was the location reccees, this part possibly took the most time and patience, it involved taking photos from one point to the next of an area, the photos were then edited and placed ontop of eachother to create one image. We then had to write about power sources and lighting.

The final part of our pre-production task was to get the correct permission from the correct people to film on Kings Langley common on the desired days. In order to do this we rang watford police station and explained in detail what our fiming task would involve, they then accepted out filming dates and gave us a refrence number, URN 180 incase we had any troubled or were asked in future if we had permission due to the content of our film. We also then rung Kings Langley council and followed the same routine, they also agreed and gave us permission in the form of an email.

Treatment and title planning

TREATMENT
SCENE 1:

VISUAL- Establishing shot that presents the woods as eerie and uneasy, the woods will be lacking in light, creating an anxious and daunting atmosphere, where trees are almost shown as silhouettes and the shadowing is distorted.

Male approaching the entrance to woods listening to music, unaware of anything going on. Eventually he enters the woods.

The male ‘victim’ is uneasy whilst proceeding through the woods but is put at ease when he see’s the female ‘killer’, the two cross paths and seemingly carry on, on their separate journeys.

The male ‘victim’ realises there is something is going on; he turns around to see the female ‘killer’ running towards him and as he does so he is struck round the head by the female ‘killer’ and blacks out.

AUDIO-

Music – String music of a steady beat, staccato, that gradually gets louder until the titles have rolled then it will gradually fade out as characters enter the scene.
Diegetic Sound – Audience can hear the music he is listening to as well as general background noises e.g. walking noises.
Music – Fast, built up and heavy music will accompany the drama occurring in the scene.
Diegetic Sound – Rustling of leaves as the female ‘killer’ runs towards the male ‘victim’.

SCENE 2:

VISUAL - All that is visible is the male ‘victim’s’ torso as the female ‘killer’ drags him knocked out through the bush.

AUDIO -

Diegetic Sound – The female ‘killer’ breathing heavily whilst dragging the male ‘victim’. Dragging sound is more dominant, as the breathing fades.

SCENE 3:

VISUAL- The male ‘victim’ wakes up in the middle of a large ditch. Blurred the male awakens and slowly sits up, after several seconds the male falls back down to his original position.

AUDIO -

Music – Build up/increase of volume then
a sudden stop when he collapses again.

The title of our film was decided as a group, we originally named our film 'behind closed eyes' and then renamed it 'The woods', the title was appropriate due to the location and mysterious nature of our film.

Questionnaire to target audience & Evalution of results

Questionnaire:

The aim of the below questionnaire was to establish our target audience, the questionnaire has a variety of questions addressing several different opinions we needed to know from people. The questionnaire was given to fourty people, the majority of whom were teenagers and nearly equally half male and female.

Evaluation of results:
Because of the almost perfectly even handout of questionnaires between males and females the evaluation of our questionnaires was relatively easy in terms of gender:
Females tended to:
- Prefer comedy, action and drama genres of films.
- To go to the cinema on a more regular basis, either once a month or 2-4 a month.
- To find blood and gore more offensive than males and prefer psychological attacks over physical attacks in thriller films.
- Go to the cinema with friends and partners.

Where as, males tended to:
- Prefer horror, comedy, sci-fi and action genres of films.
- To go to the cinema less, either once a month or less.
- To find blood and gore not offensive and prefer physical attacks in thriller films.
- Go to the cinema with friends and partners, the same as the females.

Recent films from genre.

Recent films from the thriller genre:

Shutter Island:

Shutter Island starring Leonardo DiCaprio, 2010 is defined as a 'psychological mystery-thriller' directed by Martin Scorsese. Based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. The production of the film began in March 2008 and was finally re-completed by March 2010 after a slip-up in October 2009.

Popularity:

Se7en:

Seven, written on the movie covers and often reffered to as 'Se7en' released in 1995 is a crime film or a 'psychological thriller' directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. A film based around a series of murders inspired by the seven deadly starring Morgan Freeman and Bad Pitt. The film was considered a financial and critical success.

Popularity:

Fight Club:

The 1999 adaptation of the 1996 novel of the same name written by Chuck Palahniuk starring Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter. Edward Norton plays the nameless main protagonist who creates a "fight club" with soap salesman Tyler Durden. The films popularity grew over the years after its release and financially was relatively reliable.

Popularity:

History of genre

Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film and television that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres. Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more-powerful and better-equipped villains. Writer Vladimir Nabokov, in his lectures at Cornell University, said that "In an Anglo-Saxon thriller, the villain is generally punished, and the strong silent man generally wins the weak babbling girl, but there is no governmental law in Western countries to ban a story that does not comply with a fond tradition, so that we always hope that the wicked but romantic fellow will escape scot-free and the good but dull chap will be finally snubbed by the moody heroine.Literary devices such as suspense, red herrings and cliffhangers are used extensively.

"Homer's Odyssey is one of the oldest stories in the Western world and is regarded as an early prototype of the thriller.” A thriller is villain driven plot, whereby he presents obstacles the hero must overcome. The genre is a fascinatingly flexible form that can undermine audience complacency through a dramatic rendering of psychological, social, familial and political tensions and encourages sheltered but sensation-hungry audiences, in Hitchcock's phrase, "to put their toe in the cold water of fear to see what its like.

refrence: wikipedia.

Group meeting

GROUP MEETINGS -


16/11/09:
In the initial stages of creating our JAMS production coursework piece as a group we held several group meetings both during and out of our media lessons. Our first meeting was on the date we started the task.


The first meeting consisted of making decisions about the genre of the product and beginning to outline to plot for the opening sequence we were going to create. As a group we came up with three genres that were of interest to us all, they were comedy, thriller and horror. From this point we weighed up the positives and negatives of each genre and considered the sub-genres we could venture into with each genre.


As a group with a united decision we all agreed that altough following comedy through into producing a 'spoof' would have been something we were interested in doing it would have been very difficult to effectively achieve comedy in the two minutes we were given for the opening sequence and equally as difficult to achieve a comedy that would suit the majority of the audience. We also decided that to create an effective opening sequence for a horror film would have been unachievable due to the amount of time we had and the lack of equiptment, costume and lighting both meaning the continuity and mise en scene of the finished product would have been questionable.



The genre we chose we thriller, as a group we felt this was the most appropriate choice based on several points:
- Location: The woods surrounding our school would make an ideal place to film a thriller.


- Lighting: Other than natural day-light, the lack of artifical lighting equpitment at our school and the fact that we planned to film outside, we decided that 'reflectors' made by our group in school would be all we needed.
- Costume: Minimal costume would be needed in a thriller.


In this meeting other than establishing the location, lighting and costume we also began to work on the details of the outline for the plot of the opening sequences. The first thing we established was that we wanted the minimum characters due to there only being four people in our group and also that we wanted POV shots due to our interest in the case study we carried out on 'The blair witch project', 1999 in previous lessons. We decided on the names of our characters, 'Sarah hughes' and 'Rory'.

18/11/09:
In our second group meeting we began to plan the plot for the whole story, this involved expanding on the plot for the opening sequence, determining certain traits about the characters and their relevance.

Conventions of an Opening sequence

The thriller genre focuses on audience reception they advertise intense suspense and excitement typical characteristics of thriller films are for the sequences to be very fast paced, for there to be some kind of frequentaction and the films usually encapulate a hero and a villain. Generally thrillers are known to focus on plot over character.

Typical points:
Camera:
- Point of view; the camera should take on human qualities, the camera should reflect the way in which something is being done e.g. looking around a room for an object.
- High angle shots; used for victims. The high angle shot on the victim works as the shot makes the character appear vulnerable; Alfred Hitchcock used this in ‘Psycho’.
- Low angle shots; used for the aggressor. - The low angle shot on the aggressor works as the shot makes the character appear menacing; Hitchcock also uses this in ‘Psycho’.
- Quick cuts; used in thriller films to let the camera tell the story rather than the actors; for example in Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ there are quick cuts from the knife to vulnerable parts of body, the camera tells the story as you never see the knife pierce the body.

Editing:
- Point of view;
- montages;
- camera tells story;
- lots of cuts during action;
- Use of effect such as sepia, b/w.
Sound:
- Strings
- Classical music

Themes:
There are six main themes that are carried out throughout thrillers:
- Reality – The theme of reality is often displayed in thrillers with the characters or often the main protagonist trying to determine what is ‘true’ or ‘real’ and what is not within the narrative.
- Perception – The theme of perception is a person's own interpretation/ view of the world around them through their senses. Often characters misperceive the world around them, or their perceptions are altered by outside factors within the narrative (see Unreliable narrator).
- Mind – The human consciousness; the location for personality, thought, reason, memory, intelligence and emotion. The mind is often used as a location for narrative conflict, where characters battle their own minds to reach a new level of understanding or perception.
- Existence/Purpose - The object for which something exists; an aim or a goal humans strive towards to understand their reason for existence. Characters often try to discover what their purpose is in their lives and the narrative's conflict often is a way for the characters to discover this purpose.
- Identity - The definition of one's self. Characters often are confused about or doubt who they are and try to discover their true identity.
- Death - The cessation of life. Characters either fear or have a fascination with death.

Narrative:
A successful way of keeping the audience following the film is to use a narrative that shows the story from one of the character's points of view. By following one individual character, the storyline is consistent and the audience is also able to relate to the character, meaning that it is easier to build up the tension within the film because the viewer is able to relate to the character with greater ease.

Examples of thriller films:
- The godfather - Francis Ford Coppola
- Psycho - Alfred Hitchcock
- Se7en - David Fincher
- Silence of the lambs - Jonathan demme
- The shinning - Stanely Kubrick
- No counrty for old men - Ethan and Joel Coen
- Jaws - Stephen Speilberg
- Basic Instinct - Paul Verhoeven

Characters:
- Minimal characters- Typically consists of a hero and a villain.- Macguffin's are often used - A macguffin is a plot device that motivates the characters or advances the story, but the details of which are of little or no importance otherwise e.g. the policeman in 'psyhco'.