A. As my media product is the opening of a Psychological Thriller, and I had watched other psychological thrillers prior to filming my own, I have followed some of the typical conventions you would normallly associate with thrillers.
Firstly the music used is a slow/mid tempo piano piece, that slowing builds up tension and suspense.
Also by using some sort of action so early in a film it keeps the audience quessiong what could be the back story of the film, the motives of a specif character, which is what we did in the opening. Many thriller films start off like this for example 'The Usual Suspects'.
Q2. How does you media product represent particular social groups?
A. In our psychological thriller we originally wanted to use a 15 year old school girl but insted, but instead, down to lack of time and option, we used a 17 year old (sixth former) as our victim.
The actress is presented as a typical modern day school girl, shown by the clothes, not full uniform, and accessories like the handbag and mobile, things typical of young girls in this day and age, also she is presented as being vulnerable because she is being kidnapped. Using this stereotypical representation is key for the film as maybe younger audiences' can relate to her.
The male lead (kidnapper) is shown wearing dark clothing and his face remains a mystery at this point. He is presented as the unknown character because the audience doesn't know the full story behind his actions.
Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
A. I would say the film is more Mainstream, so I think Working Title would be a more appropriate distributer of the film with their connection to Universal.
Working Title have distributed a number of successful films over the years, notably the thriller 'The Interpreter' (2005). The film has become Working Title's biggest three day opening weekend ever, with a gross revenue of approximately $172 million and opening at the number 1 spot in over 20 countries including the UK. Working Title's latest film to be distributed is the thriller 'State of Play' with a gross revenue of $40,667,121. With Working Title's list of successful films, they would be more appropriate distributers.
Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
A. As our audience research was aimed at 15 to 24 years olds, this is our prefered age range for our media product. The young actress used would attact in more of the younger audience, whilst also being gripped by the storyline.
Our media product is also aimed at those who enjoy medical thrillers, which was the majority vote in the audience research we conducted. This is why we decided to make our film a medical thriller, with our to male leads, one being a doctor and the other being the unstable kidnapper in the story.
Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?
A. There were many techniques in which we used to attract our audience, firstly with the kidnap storyline. Although this type of storyline is quite cliched, it can make for an exciting and gripping film.
The action of a school girl being kidnapped by an unstable man happens right at the beginning of the clip to keep the audience hooked by wanting to find out how the story develops.
Not only does this action at the start create tension, the non-diegetic sound of the music in the background which is a piano piece that changes in volume to make the action more effective in building that tension.
Besides the action and music, the role of the characters also attracted the audience because of the position they are in and how they deal with it. You have a vulnerable young girl who gets kidnapped by an unstable man with psychological issues, which draws the audience in to see how the story unfolds.
Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
A. When constructing this product i've come to be more familiar when using technologies such as cameras and a Mac computers.
I personally thought that filming the product was quite straight forward, like using functions such as zoom and auto focus aswell as positioning the camera in the desired angle. However I think the most chalenging part was using the Mac computers for the editing. I wasn't familiar with using this particular computer model, so it took a while to learn how to cut scenes etc.
This is the way in which we cut scenes down by 'Split Video Clip at Playhead'.
I have also learnt how to add to our video clips, things like Audio, Transactions and Effects to make the video more effective.
Now it is much easier for me to access and operate iMovies aswell as editing, so I would have any problems in the future.
Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
A.
Looking back at the preliminary task it wasn't anything spectacular, just ordinary shot to shots, over the shoulder, that sort of thing, also not that much time was spent on the editing of this task, so it was quite plain.
However moving on to a bigger project has given us the chance to broaden our knowledge of camera angles, shots and techniques like also inserting those transitions and effects to make the clip flow more fluently.
Now when you compare the preliminary task to the final product, you can see the significant steps and changes that were needed to be made in order to successfully film the thriller opening.
Shots were used from different angles, heights etc, and the end product gives us a sense of satisfaction.
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