We did this to make it look like the female was being watched and this puts the audience in a privileged position as the character doesn’t realise that she is being watched we used the diary much like the movie “se7en” as we didn’t want our credits to be superimposed over the top of our footage, we wanted them to be incorporated into the film opening itself. The thriller we created is a typical thriller which would be shown in a cinema and then released onto a DVD. Other films have influenced our work including “Se7en” with the use of credits and “Taken” with the idea of someone being taken or kidnapped.
The social groups shown in our thriller opening show that all of the characters are male apart from the female character, which makes her seem vulnerable and insecure as the protagonist victim. The meeting scene shows the characters smartly dressed which gives the impression of a middle or higher social class. Gender particularly is represented in a stereotypical way with the idea that men are dominant and women are more passive and vulnerable. This is mainly shown by the number of male characters in contrast to the only female character which shows vulnerability. This links to our target audience of both men and women as they both appear in the movie and follows other films which use the same sort of conventions.
Our thriller is something that could be produced by a major studio because it uses classic thriller conventions to create a sense of tension and suspense. It is similar to the film “Taken” produced in 2008.
They both show the idea and storyline of a female being taken and kidnapped although this may not be as clear in our 2:00 minute thriller opening. Our thriller film would be released it gives more opportunity for franchises, sequels and merchandises. This could include the DVD itself but also the soundtrack to the movie. Other merchandise ideas could include a sequel to the movie or even novelty merchandise such as the diary featured in the movie. Mise-en-scene is a major part of any film particularly for thrillers as props and expression to show the atmosphere of the scene. We had to think carefully about this because at the beginning we set up a shot which showed the contents of the female characters bag. We had to think about what a female would be carrying in her bag and what was in the shot. The audience would also notice that the items in the first shot were then shown throughout the rest of the sequence showing the significance about the character.
The audience for our piece would be aimed at over twelve considering the guidelines of the certification restrictions. The style of the film is appealing to both female and male although people below the age of twelve may watch the movie once it has been released on DVD. The film opening we have produced is much like the film “Taken” This movie would appeal to the same sort of audience even though “Taken” is classed as an eighteen, they both share similar conventions such as hand-held point of view camera shots.
In our product there are scenes or points where some members would feel scared. This particularly is shown when the female character is walking back to her car and she is grabbed on the shoulder from behind. Some viewers may find this disturbing or unexpected as they weren’t expecting this to happen or may have experienced a time similar to this. This scene expresses the vulnerability of the female especially as she is the only female character at the start of the film which could show the significance of her presence throughout the film. Her significance is particularly conveyed at the beginning of the sequence when she steps out of the car and the tilt shot of her as she walks along the side of the building. The use of camera work in this section particularly addresses the audience by using hand-held point of view shots. This puts the audience in a privileged position as they are aware that the female character is being watched in the meeting. Point of view shots are also used towards the end of the sequence as the length of takes gets shorter to create tension. The audience are asked to put themselves in the position of the person who is watching the female character as she walks away from the meeting which allows the audience to witness the girl being taken. This encourages the audience to carry on watching as they want to find out what happens to the female character. The short takes indicate the build up of suspense and tension which is shortly followed by the character being pushed and then a shot of the things in her bag which was shown at the beginning of the sequence. The audience now know where the items came from and how they got there.
Since completing our preliminary task we have been able to learn and gain understanding about how the camera equipment and the computer software used to edit the footage. Strengths of the camera equipment were that the media department were able to lend out equipment such as cameras, tripods and batteries so that we didn’t have to provide our own filming equipment. Another strength to the equipment was that we were able to use the apple Macs which are good for editing and creating special effects.
When we started filming we had to check that all of the filming equipment was working correctly and that we had everything we needed. One problem that we did encounter was that once we received with a camera, battery and computer leads for it, we only found out that the batteries were out of charge when we came to film. Some of the time we were able to plug the camera into the main electricity supply but when it came round to filming outside we had to charge the cameras inside to make sure they were charged enough without being connected to the mains. We were able to use new equipment such as reflector boards and photography lighting to help us to create as much light as we could. The editing software we used was Final Cut Express on the Apple Macs.
At first I found it hard to understand the programme, so I watched the tutorial on the apple website to help me understand how to use it. I have been able to understand the cutting process and how to put music over the top of the footage. I was able to incorporate text into the film and keep it in a fixed position, shown at the beginning of our film.
We used a programme called garage band to create and edit our music as we had to use music that was un-copyrighted. With this programme we were able to converge pieces of music together and add extra beats and sounds. We had to time it along with our footage to add in extra sounds where we wanted them to mark an action or add to the atmosphere.
With our preliminary task we didn’t have much time for planning although for our thriller opening we had a lot more time to plan and develop our ideas. We had to discuss our storyline and genre of our film and how to achieve this through thriller conventions. We created a storyboard to show each shot that we intended to do. We produced a second storyboard accompanied with a voice over to explain each shot. This detailed planning helped us when filming as we knew exactly what shots we needed to do and we had to make time for everything to be completed. By producing a storyboard we knew exact shots we needed to capture which helped the process to be smoother. Through practice and precision our shots improved as we filmed the same shot a few times in case it was incorrect. We all gained more confidence and knowledge by using the equipment.
No comments:
Post a Comment