Evaluation Question Seven

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

When I look back at my preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt a lot from that point until now, having finished my final project.

Firstly I have learnt how to work as part of a team, effectively. I have learnt that communication is important, you have to make sure that everyone is having their ideas heard and taking part. I've also learnt how important it is too stand up for what you think is going to benefit your group the most, this was something I was unable to do whilst filming my preliminary task. Working as a part of a group is a great thing, it allows you to spread the work load out evenly and not let just one person do all the work, as well as get a variety of different opinions and ideas in order to work to the best of your ability, this I am grateful for, as I don't think I would've coped on my own. 

Another thing i have learnt in the progression from the preliminary task to the full project is the amount of work goes into making something like this. I have a new found appreciation and respect for film writers, producers, directors ect... because I know how much work I put into my project, the amount they must have to put in must be immense. 

I have also learnt that your mise-en-scene is more important that I originally thought, when filming our preliminary task we didn't really have to think about the costumes or make up, location, props ect because it didn't matter we were trying to showcase our camera skills. But when it came to filming, I found myself picking up on it, like the spacing of the location we used, because I knew it was something the audience would pick up on, if it wasn't done to the best of our ability.



I also realised how much your camera, and camera quality affect your movie. If the camera quality is rubbish or the camera is shaky, it looks bad on you as the creator, so I learnt from my preliminary task how to handle a camera better, as I was the camera operator. It was something that took a while for me to get my head around as I had never really used one for this purpose before hand. 

A final thing that I have learnt from the progression from my preliminary task to my final project is how important it is to take into consideration the current forms and conventions of a thriller film as well as looking at the issues surrounding your audience and how you think it will effect or benefit them. I found myself thinking about it more and more as the project commenced, and I began making decisions based on whether or not it would help the audience understand or if it challenged or conformed to the conventions of thriller movies that already existed. 

Evaluation Question Six

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

Here is an audio clip of me answering this question:

Evaluation Question Five

How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation Question Four

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation Question Three

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

Evaluation Question Two

How does your media product represent particular social group?

Evaluation Question One

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

Throughout our thriller opening we have tried to both use and challenge forms of other media products. We have done this through the use of camera angles, character choice and the mise-en-scene, in particular the spacing of the characters on the screen.

Towards the beginning of the opening, there is a close-up of our female victim. We show her to the stereotypical, blonde haired, vulnerable victim, she is seen to have been crying and begging for her life. This complies with the conventions that we see in many thriller movies that women are vulnerable, needy and weak; this is similar to Drew Barrymore’s character, Casey Becker, in Scream. She is seen to be vulnerable and weak as she begged for her life, we wanted to draw from something like that when it came to our female victim. 

We tied up our 2 victim based characters in the centre of the room, there are shots to show this in various points throughout the thriller movie. This uses the forms and conventions of a thriller film, as it has a female victim, which isn’t uncommon throughout the genre, examples including; Taken, Along Came a Spider and Trapped. It gives into the stereotype as it tends to be women who get kidnapped as they are seen as ‘easier prey’. However we also challenge the form and convention by also having a male victim, especially considering it was a female antagonist.

We have a strong female character antagonist, which isn’t very common throughout thriller movies, but is becoming increasingly more common to show women in thriller movies to be enigmatic or disturbingly sadomasochistic. We wanted to challenge the stereotype that not just thriller movies, but all movies have. That is that women are weaker than men, we wanted our female lead to have all the qualities that a male character would have in that position; no remorse, motivation, merciless and vengeful. Thriller movies that have a strong female antagonist include; Crimson Peak, Stoker and Excision. 

Them- The Completed Thriller Opening

This is our completed Thriller opening which we have named them. 

Behind The Scenes: Editing

Our editing took up the most amount of time, this was because when we went through each part of our filming we did, we noticed things that didn't quite fit together properly, so we had to go back and film extra bits to add in. 

In the beginning, our film once we'd edited it all together, only came to 1 minute 45 seconds and it was pretty boring as there was nothing that built up to the ending. So we decided to film how each character ended up there. Firstly we filmed how the mistress got kidnapped and we edited that in with the shots of her tied up, then we did the same with how the husband got kidnapped. 

A screen shot of how we added parts in. 

When I made the opening credits the first time, the actual credits took up 25 seconds of the film, and they were on a black screen. Which got me thinking, if they were going to take that much time, then maybe we could use that time for something that helps to develop our plot line. As I previously mentioned, I then decided it would be a good time to introduce the female character and her way of thinking. I hoped this would attract the audiences attention immediately and want to make sure that they weren't bored, so we decided to go with this instead. 

It took us a little while to get our heads around how iMovie worked, but after a while we did. We were able to use the little bits to make our movie the best it could be. For example,we layered the sounds on top of each other, and took away the audio on the actual footage to make it sound more realistic, as seen below. 

I spent a lot of time, editing on my own as one of the girls in the group went on holiday towards the end of the project being finished. I found this extremely time consuming, but it also fills me with extreme pride to know what I am capable of. We also, used windows movie maker to create the end section, see below, and the opening credits so we could use the font we wanted and have the background we wanted.