Used
The first convention we used within our opening was have a complex narrative structure with false paths, clues and resolutions. In most cases Thrillers will use this particular convention in an attempt to the keep the audience drawn into what is taking place, force them to ask questions and try to manipulate them into working out what is happening within the film. Within our Thriller opening this can be seen from the very start, for instance at the start of the opening when Rosie is seen walking along the train tracks, by only revealing her feet we immediately made the audience question whether or not she was in danger. As the opening continues it becomes clear that Rosie is indeed not in any immediate danger so the fact she was playing on the train tracks giving an inkling of danger was in actual fact a false path. As we get further into our opening the storyline becomes more complex, the audience feels unsure why Rosie is at the deserted train tracks playing happily but also alone with no visible parent in sight. Not only this but the music we used within our opening also adds to the atmosphere and keeps the audience wondering whether or not Rosie is in a good or bad situation as she is seen playing with the snow and as soon as the music switches and becomes more sinister the same can be said for the situation. We see that Rosie is being watched but by who we are uncertain, with the use of POV shots we were able to keep the identity of this second character hidden and in doing so built up a great deal of tension. However as the mysterious character approches Rosie she doesn't seem scared or unfamiliar with him, this could also be considered as a false path as the audience may have felt again Rosie was in danger when apparently she is not. Mise en scene is also a key part of opening for example, although Rosie is seen wearing innocent and simple clothes, the darker character (Nigel) is seen wearing all black and dark clothes making him both suspicious and mysterious in turn making the audience question what he is doing and why is with this young girl?
This convention can be found in a variety of real media products, this is mainly due to the fact that it is a key part of many Thrillers. A classic example of a thriller than contains a very similar complex narrative structure as our own opening is from the film Frailty. Frailty is a psychological thriller, that discovers the relationship between two young boys and their father, it contains a large quantity of false path and nothing ever appears exactly what is seems an example of this is the fact their father believe he has been summoned by god to kill demons. Having said this the actual relationship between the family of three appears normal, but the complexity of the storyline constantly has the audience guessing, asking questions and wondering what really is going on. This strange family bond is similar to our opening as we too have a mysterious family relationship buried deep into our complex narrative structure. This particular image portrays a scenario from everyday life however the audience are still question and wondering what might happen next.
The second convention that we used within our thriller opening was that of the reaction shot another convention often found in many thriller Titles. The reaction shot can be seen in our Thriller opening when Rosie is seen reacting to the snapping of the twig as Nigel approaches. We show this via a mid-close up shot of Rosie's face when reacting to the discovery of her uncle (Nigel). In most Thrillers reaction shots are used in a situation in which the audience cannot see what the character is reacting to and simply witness the characters response. This can be very effective as it can keep the audience drawn in, once again forcing them to ask questions about what is happening. This is exactly what we have tried to achieve with this particular shot keeping Nigel's character and personality hidden from the audience to add a sense of mystery of tension, we only reveal his postion from the waist down in order to achieve this. Personally I believe this worked well however if we had maybe include an more clearer shot of Rosie's reaction it would have worked even better however I still believe with the added dialog the audience are comfortably able to interrupt the situation.
An example of a Thriller title that endorsees a smilar reaction shot to our own is The Departed. There is a shot included within the film in which one of the characters a male, reacts visibly to what is said and done in a particular scene, the character is seen giving a strong disliking for what has taken place without his say or consultation in this respect the reaction shot used is slightly different to our own as unlike Rosie the character from The Departed doesn't use dialog to react. Having said this both are equally effective shots and help to create tension and enhance the atmosphere.
Developed
An example of a convention we developed within our opening is that of mise en scene which echoes/mirrors the protagonists plight. In every Thriller and films in general mise en scene is very important. In our opening our mise en scene must be relevant to both Rosie and Nigel feelings as well as their emotions. A good example of this would be if a character is upset then they should be placed in a surrounding with dark and harsh like where as in contrast to this if a character is feeling happy then they should be placed in bright and light surroundings. The reason why this particular convention is important to us is because within our opening we have two main settings one dark and unnerving, the other happy and safe. There deserted train tracks are where is Rosie is seen happily playing and laughing to herself we complimented this with bright lighting to give an impression or sign of happiness. The other setting within our opening is that of the warehouse in which Nigel locks Rosie away, we never actually filmed inside the warehouse however if we had then we would have been sure to adjust to lighting in order to give the room a very dark and gloomy appearance to truly portray how Rosie feels when she's trapped inside. The way in which these two locations contrast each other can be seen in the mirroring of contrast between the two very different feelings Rosie has at each location. Not only this but in our opening we also used music to show this so when the mood and tone of the opening changes so does the music becoming more sinister creating tension and drawing the audience in further.
A classic example of this convention can be found in the Thriller title The Black Swan, during the film the convention is developed throughout the film. Once the main character has finished one of her dances the spotlight is fixed on her visibly showing that she is happy and content with her performance however in contrast to this whilst she is dance the lighting is very dark and mysterious perhaps showing signs of potential evil. Not only this but within other shots during the film her feelings and emotions are visibly darker when the she is not happy, this is an example of a contrast in emotion and mirroring the contrast between two very personalities or behaviors.
Another example of a convention we have developed can be found in the presence of innocence in what is in seen as essentially corrupt world. We present Rosie as a young innocent and potentially vulnerable girl, she's dresses in innocent and simple clothes and her facial expressions, emotions and reactions are a classic example of an innocent young girl. Where as Nigel is presented as the corrupt part of her world as he seen taking away from her from the fun at the train tracks as well as her family and friends to be locked away and trapped inside his deserted warehouse. Rosie has no say in what is taking place she just conforms with Nigel's commands, she is just an innocent girl trapped in Nigel's distorted view of life.
This convention is also in the Thriller title Sixth Sense yet another psychological thriller which is about a young boy isolated in world in which he is able to contact the deceased. This particular shot shows cards and candles left to remember the dead, the cards represent the innocent part of his world where as at the same time the corrupt half is the fact he can both still hear and see the dead.Challenged
A convention we have challenged in our opening is the normal running order of opening credits as we have placed the title of the film at the end of the opening sequence. This is unusual in most Thrillers as the title is usually at the start to add a sense of importance and dominance. We wanted to leave our title until the end of opening to build up tension and keep the audience guessing as to what is was they were indeed watching. Personally I do indeed believe this particular move worked very well for us as people who watched our opening felt excited and wanted to see more after the revelation of the title confirming that it had the exact effect we had intended for it. The music and the pace of the credits also help add to this.
In the Thriller title Hard Candy, have in contrast to us placed their title at the begging of their opening credit sequence, having said this having the title at the start is also effective but I personally believe it fails to create any real tension. This is where I believe that by challenging this convention we have done well and succeeded in creating an added sense of mystery and tension.
Another convention we have challenged is the fact that we don't have the main character in opening scene. The main character within our film is in actual fact an detective/investigator, during our opening we introduce the audience and show signs of what he may be investigating. This particular shot is of both Nigel and Rosie the only two characters to appear in our opening, you never see Nigel's face during the opening however you get a good insight into Rosie and her character. We did this via the use of several different camera shots such as POV's to keep Nigel's identity hidden and give no clues away as to both Rosie and Nigel's relationship in order to create a real sense of mystery throughout the opening. If we had included our investigator within our opening then we would have given a lot of the storyline away far to soon, removing a great deal of both tension and mystery from our film as certain aspects would be too predictable which would have most definitely lowered the effectiveness and successfulness of our opening. By not including the investigator within our opening we were able to keep the audience drawn in forcing them to ask questions and try and work out what was taking place which is the exact effect we were trying to create.
In contrast to this in the Thriller title The Machinist both the main character and the title of the film are revealed. By doing this and including the main character right from the opening shot the audience are given a real sense and idea of whats to come and by seeing his face within the first 30 seconds of the film makes it appear more personal. However we decided against doing this, once again so that we could build up tension and mystery within our opening. As a result of this I believe we challenged this convention effectively and successfully as we kept the audience wondering as to what was to come.
The answer to this question is situated on our wikispaces page in the link below.
http://nfgsmedia.wikispaces.com/Misplaced
4. Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?
The type of person that would watch our Thriller opening depends on a variety of factors for example age, interest and class among many other things . This question will seek to explain everything about our ideal audience member.
Rebecca Smythe or Bex to her friends is currently in a relationship with Tom whom she has been with for the past seven years after they both met on an Architecture course they took together at University. Rebecca and Tom both like similar things for example Rebecca really enjoys watching films especially Psychological Thrillers as she loves the tension and suspense associated with them, she likes to watch films that make her think about what is really taking place. Having said this Rebecca does like to watch chick flicks as well as a romance every once in a while with Tom. Rebecca is very passionate about reading and from this has endorsed a very creative personality, she spends a lot of her time reading books, reading through internet blogs as well as magazine articles and she also likes to watch a variety of different YouTube videos and has a very active account of the website where she often communicates with other users. Rebecca isn't too keen on modern music and prefers listening to older songs, classics that remind her of when she was young. Rebecca wears a variety of different clothes, she would usually shop at charity shops such as Oxfam (http://www.oxfam.com) and wear whatever she feels like wearing, she would not be tied down to any particular fashion and would wear what she feels comfortable in and not what she feels will impress others. Rebecca is a very family orientated person and as a result of this hasn't been away from her family for very long before apart from when she was at university meaning that she has never traveled outside of the UK, her and Tom are both eager to travel round the world and are currently planning a trip to America which they are saving up for at the moment. However Rebecca still manages to spend some of her spare money on purchasing films that interest her and going to the cinema as often as she can. Rebecca believes in respecting other and treating people in a way she would want to be treated herself. Not only this but she values life greatly and has a huge appreciation and gratefulness for the life that she lives, she is very close to her family and friends and spends a lot of her time with them. Although Rebecca and her boyfriend are very active and want to travel, Rebecca also enjoys sitting on the sofa watching a film that she has discovered from a blog or an internet video with Tom, usually these are quite small films and are not mainstream titles.
As a group we decided that our thriller opening would be most suited to people between the ages of 20-30. This is mainly due to the events within our opening and how they might disturbe or upset someone of a younger audience where as a more mature audience would be able to understand our slightly complex storyline and events that occur within much easier. The reason we felt our ideal audience member would be female is because one of the characters in the opening is a young girl (Rosie) and a female audience member would be able to relate to her much easier, not only this but the situation Rosie finds herself in would have much more of an impact on a female audience member as they too wouldn't want to be in her position. Having said this it is easy to suggest that a male audience member would also be attracted to our opening as well with the storyline and potential fear factor drawing them in especially if they have a young daughter in which they are very protective of as there protective instincts may kick in as they see a young girl in a position they would be very fearful of seeing their own child in. If we look back at our "Target Audience" post, the type of audience member we wanted to target, was interested in both authenticity and a setting that promoted realism this is something I believe we achieved massively. Not only this but we also looked at particular films our target audience enjoyed and I believe that we were successful again in that respect as our target audience member enjoyed contained a lot of suspense, mystery and tension.5. How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience?
In order to answer this question we have placed a series of annotations onto our completed thriller opening video "Misplaced". This can be found on our YouTube channel in the link below.
I personally believe that we attracted and addressed our audience very well as we managed to meet their expectations and thought long and hard about how they would feel when watching our opening.
6. What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Processes of Constructing This Product?
During the production of this thriller opening I have gained a great deal of knowledge about a variety of different technologies that we have used both online and offline. I have to admit I had dealt with some of these technologies before however the majority of them were all new to me and i have lernt a lot from them. This post will aim to inform you of what I have learnt.
Before this project I had no previous experience of using Blogger however this didn't seem to matter as after just a few hours of getting to grips with the site I was able to design and then create blog posts efficiently and effectively which has really benefited me as blogger an essential asset to our production. Blogger's flexibility really impressed me as I was able to adjust layouts, fonts, backgrounds and embed videos very easily. Another feature that impressed me about blogger was the ability to create a tag cloud in which we could tag individual posts with key tags for example "Preliminary Task" this was very useful as it made it very simple to find certain posts when needed and keep track of any posts that we may have needed to edit especially group posts. Personally I believe all these features benefited us greatly when using the site and helped us create a successful and professional log of all the events that took place during the creation our thriller opening. The simplicity of posting work, uploading photo's and being able to embed videos quickly without delay was a key for me as it helped me to work efficiently throughout the production and has benefited me immensely.
YouTube
In contrast to Blogger, YouTube is a site I am very familiar with and having a lot of experience with using. As a group we used YouTube as the main source for uploading our work for example our Preliminary Task and our Animatic Storyboard. I was very comfortable with this process as I have had a lot of experience with YouTube uploader in the past. Another aspect of YouTube I was very comfortable with was the tagging and the placing of annotations on our videos as I'd also had a vast experience of doing such taks. As well as being a source for us to upload our content YouTube has also helped us greatly when receiving feedback on our videos instantly, this was very useful to us as it meant we could evaluate peoples thoughts about what we had posted and ring any necessary changes we felt needed to be made as a result of this. It was also very useful to have a log of all videos we had watched using our account as we could then go back to them at a later date if we needed to check over something for example Final Cut Express Tutorials or interesting thriller openings that we felt may benefit us. YouTube has been an inspirational piece of technology and has benefited me and our group in numerous ways, it's simplicity and effectiveness has been truly brilliant.
Prezi
In order to make some of our posts more exciting we used a website called 'Prezi'. Prezi is a personal online slideshow creator. Personally I had no experience of this website and have found it rather confusing to use at times, however the more I've used it and as time has gone on I have become more comfortable with the layout and design of the website and have found myself creating my own presentation, I was able to alter text, shapes and insert different images which i found very useful. Personally I believe Prezi has also benefited me and the group greatly as it is an exciting and different way of presenting information with it's path viewer in which you can direct the path of what is viewed. I would definitely recommend Prezi and intend to use it for a variety of presentations in the future as it is so successful.
Apple iMac
As an apple enthusiast I had no issues at all operating the Apple iMac. I found It extremely easy and straight forward to use as I barely had to think about what I was doing as it was also so simple. The ability to print screen quickly and efficiently as well as the quick start up all came in very handy when operatin the machine. The iMac was essential to us at it is what we used to edit our production with the help of Final Cut Express. The iMac was a perfect choice as it was just so practical, easy to use and I believe benefited our group greatly.Final Cut Express
Personally I had never used Final Cut Express before and was probably the technology I felt the least comfortable with using. However this all changed soon after our Preliminary Task in which I learnt how to import videos, and how to slot clips together as well as manipulate the length and size of each individual clip. At first the prospect of using this piece of software to edit our footage was quite daunting as there is just so much you can do however over time I realised that this was in actual fact a very useful asset and meant that we could play about with our clips as little or as much as we liked to tailor our needs and wants. As a result of this I am now comfortably able to trim footage, add in a variety of effects, tweak audio, and play about with different transitions such as cross dissolve. I really enjoyed using this piece of software and as editing is something I want to do for a career this has helped me a lot in what I've learnt and what I can do moving forward from this. Final Cut Express is a great programme and has been essential to our group, I would definitely recommend using it and would happily use it in the future.
FreePlayMusic.com
I had no previous experience of using this website, however this didn't matter as it was very easy to use. We used this site to get the music for our thriller opening. It was very simplistic and I found it very easy to both search and download music just by using common sense. I believe this site benefited us greatly as we found some great copyright free music to use in our thriller.
Wikispaces
Personally I had never come across this website before but luckily it was very simple to use. Once you've join the site it very easy to set up a page and within just a few clicks I was able to add text, images, links and photo's. As a group we were then able to both save and publish work easily and effectively. I also found this webpage to be very beneficial to us as a group and would consider using it for future work.
Camera
The camera we ended up using to film our thriller opening was in actual fact an HD Cannon. Personally I had no previous experience of using this camera before, however this didn't seem to matter as it was easy to pick up and learn how to use. As a result of this I was able to quickly learn how to zoom, pause, capture, turn on and off as well as take photo's and view previous footage. This was a good camera for us to use as it meant we could shoot in High Definition giving our opening a much better quality and professional look. I believe the camera benefited us greatly as it was easy to use and meant we had a much better standard of footage. This particular photo shows myself using the camera. We also used this camera, again because it was the only piece of equipment available to us that could produce the quality of footage we needed.
Tripod
During the filming of our opening footage we used a tripod to steady the camera to make sure all our appropriate shots were smooth. The tripod we used was easy to set up and use however one of the legs was broken which meant we had to use tape to keep it in place to prevent it from falling over. Nevertheless it proved a very useful piece of equipment as it was very easy to move and adjust. Personally I believe it was a great asset to us while filming and would definitely recommend using one. This is evidence of Will using the tripod that we used whilst filming our thriller opening. Once again we used this tripod as it was available for us to use for free and we needed to use a tripod to help steady a majority of our shots whilst filming.
Facebook
As a group we also used Facebook to communicate when working on the blog individually at home. I found this very easy and useful to find out what people were up to and how we could get the most out of time at home whilst working on the blog. I opened up a group message on Facebook which has been running throughout the whole process of creating our thriller opening. This was very useful and I believe benefited us all greatly as we knew who was doing what a specific times and It also meant we could easily get in contact with one another if we had any issues or queries. Here is an example of one of our many conversations.
All in all, I believe these pieces of technology have greatly helped us with the filming editing and overall production of our thriller opening. We believe they have all helped to make our opening more professional which is very important to us. Without these pieces of technology our opening could be very different. As a group we have learnt a lot from using these different technologies and I believe personally although I thought I knew a lot about the sorts of technologies we used already, I have learnt a great deal more from this process and I am very grateful for having the opportunity to use them as the extra insight into technology and software I have never used before has been very beneficial.
7. Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Product?
In order to answer this particular question we have added annotations to our Preliminary Task. The link to the video of this on YouTube can be found below.
Personally I believe that from this Preliminary Task I learnt a lot, it prepared for me for what was to come relating to the final production our our opening and helped with my confidence in using equipement and software that was vital when completing this task. Not only this but I also feel as if I've learnt a lot more regarding both researching and planning as result of this. I believe we needed a lot more planning when it came to knowing exactly what we wanted to do for this task not only this but it also encouraged me to carry out more in depth research into the genre.
Not only this but we also added some annotations to our Rough Cut to provide yet more feedback for this question.
Having this Rough Cut was really beneficial to us a group as we were able to learn a lot from it. For example it made it easy for us to analyse what we needed to add or change when editing our opening, the fact we were also able to add annotations to the video in areas we felt we needed to work on was very effective and helpful.
