Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Question 7 Media evaluation from Emily Ore

Final Cut: Out Of The Woods

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Here I have shown two screenshots of when we were editing our thriller. The first shot is off our beginning and how we faded the soundtrack in for a few seconds before the video came on to allow our audience to become interpolated in the music before the shot started.

 

 

This screen shot shows how we used different sounds to form our soundtrack and how we used different layers of diegetic and non diegetic sounds. We faded out the crows with no other shot to reflect the beginning of the scene starting in the same way, to show a narrative circle just in the opening scene.

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

We used a linear story line that allows the audience to follow the film easily and for the narrative to make sense. We used defied the stereotype characters of a thriller like like the hero who is in fact an innocent boy rather than a dominant older male. We used the minor character to establish the film and allow the audience to relate and understand some of the character types, and then using George as a binary opposite to the 'normal' hero. 

We also used equilibrium to follow Todorov’s theory of narrative and allow the story line to have a baseline of what is normal in this world and show that George isn't afraid of the woods at the beginning and show the viewer he is free and innocent through his playfulness in the woods and his shock and fear when he sees the dead body. The disruption is the lead up to and seeing the dead body. It tweaks the equilibrium and makes something unnatural to the ordinary daily life and also implies to the audience that this is where the story changes. This engages and excites the audience because something is about to change, which leads to the conventional storyline of a thriller and allows the audience to be interpolated in the film.

Through the film we would use cross cutting to show where the killer/thing is in reason with George and the other characters. We would only use POV shots and over the shoulder shots to keep the identity of the killer hidden until the end which creates tension and suspense.

Our opening to our thriller engages the audience by using a cliffhanger at the end which allows it to leave questions for the main part of the film like that killed the girl and why there is a dead body in the river. This engages the audience and allows the theme of ambiguity to be built. Furthermore, we enticed the audience to carry on watching the film through the use of tension builders and false scares. The tension builders are used through the intertextuality scene of George firing the bow. He carries it throughout the scene, but at this point the tension is raised to whether he is firing the bow to hunt or he is firing it just for the fun. We used this scene because it allows the audience to question themselves what George is doing. It allows our viewers to become immersed in the film and allows them to make their own decisions to what might happen next. In addition the scene where George finds the scarf and then the glove is a tension builder because the audience doesn't know what is coming next. The music raises questions to what is the scare and creates false scares like when George picks up the arrow and turns to look but the camera doesn't and it cuts to the scarf.

We engaged our audience through mise en scene in the opening to our thriller by showing props that George would use in the forest and play with. We didn’t want to George to be suspicious, rather a boy playing in the woods and having fun. The main idea of our opening was to show the ordinary to extraordinary and shock the audience. To reflect this idea we took a typical normal scene, George playing and lead up to something extraordinary of him finding the dead body in the river. The mise en scene we used was to show the ‘norm’ like rucksacks and a toy bow and arrow.

My primary audience will engage will George, the main character through the idea that George is reflecting them when they were younger. My audience is prominently male so would see their younger selves in the character and George is also a symbol of our target audience through ethnicity which is primarily white British. Furthermore, the costume is reasonably modern, unintentionally, with the Superdry jacket and high top trainers which reflects how my audience likes to keep up with modern trends and like to wear fashionable clothing. 

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our primary audience for our thriller would be young adults. Although the main protagonist in the film is a child, there will be other adult characters further into the film which the audience will be able to relate to. Thrillers appeal to this audience because they have a disposable income which allows them to go to the cinema more often and the themes used in these films are sometimes confusing and more intellectually demanding. Our film would attract mainly a male audience because they like the adrenaline and excitement of a psychological thriller through the use of tense and suspense scenes. White English audience will be are main audience because we don’t show many other ethnicities in the film which would attract other audiences to come see the film and someone that audience could relate to. There isn't a defined sexuality of who our thriller will attract because our film is mainly based on a friendship scale (e.g. later on George befriends another walker in the woods who ends up getting lost and dying) rather than an intimate, sexual level, so our film won’t attract a specific audience when related to sexuality. The target audience would use social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to interact with their friends and will mainly use online websites to search for information, like current affairs and news reports.


 

My target audience would watch other psychological thrillers like 'The Sixth Sense' and 'Black Swan', but also psychological action films like 'Man On A Ledge' which use similar conventions to build tension, but also include more action-styled scenes like car chases.

My target audience is mainly male, so I used typical male TV programmes which appeal to a young adult audience for them to watch. Although none of the programmes are solely psychological, I feel like they would appeal to my audience because both audiences are mainstream.

I think my primary audience would prefer to play football or watch a film rather than read, so I used a football magazine for my montage because sporting is a major thing for young males, I used GQ because it is a major male magazine which pictures major male celebrities like Leonardo Dicaprio who are influential and powerful. Furthermore I used Empire because it is a major film magazine, and my audience would watch films quite regularly so I feel like they might want to read more about the films an the making of them. 

Finally, my audience would listen to generic music played on popular young adult radio stations like Radio 1, Kiss and Capital FM. This also brings up the idea that my audience wouldn't be shy of going to festivals in the summer and watching artists they like live. 

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

1. Our characters aren't archetypes because they go against the conventions of the stereotypes and create new ideas of  what should be used. George is resembled as the hero but defies the normal hero because he isn't dominant but does defeat the baddie at the end. 

2. We used certain case studies to reflect our character representations in our thriller, Like an 'unknown', who dunnit killer reflected in films like in films like clue which leave the audience in suspense until the very end. It allows the director and film-makers to disorientate the viewer and allow excitement and tension to be built. Donnie Darko is an example of a film where a non-human is the baddie. In our case the monsters identity is never revealed because we want it to reflect the imagination of peoples fears and how each individual viewer see's the monster/killer. 

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

How do Locations in thrillers add to the element of mystery and suspense? (Independent Study)

Locations are used in different ways in thrillers to create mystery and suspense. Locations aren't always the same in thrillers because of the style of thriller.

One location used for thrillers is a big city, or capital like New York. These cities are able to entrap their characters and make it feel claustrophobic. This is shown in films like in 'Nightcrawler' where the main actor Louis played by Jake Gyllenhaal is a charming psychopath who forces his way into finding information about accidents using a police scanner. He then films these accidents for TV news programmes. However he becomes sucked into a viscous circle of crime and deliberately changes crime scenes and hides information from the police to make him more powerful and corrupt as a person. The city plays with his power through the use of enclosed spaces where crime is common which allows him to film and investigate more crimes, which consequently makes him richer and more powerful. Furthermore, cities themselves hold mystery and confusion with their dark alleyways and underlying meanings. Louis fits into this because from the outside he is a cameraman trying to film accidents, but underneath he is a creepy villain trying to hide his identity and business from the reach of reality. This shows his mysterious behaviour and how it allows the director to play with him as a character to create suspense.

Furthermore, most of the crime and unnatural behaviour happens at night which allows vivid shadows like in the shot below to be created and connote mystery and evil. Louis's back is cascaded into darkness which reflects his split personality and how he has a dark secret to why he is filming news stories. 

On the other hand, suburban neighbourhoods and small town america are used to create the idea of a perfect world not being as 'perfect' as it's portrayed. The majority of the American audience watching this The traditional clapperboard houses  are a sign of the american dream and how everyone who wants to own some land should live in these pleasant places to have a perfect life with family friends and children. Also, these houses and style of living are a symbol of power and wealth, however in so many thriller films, these themes and portrayals are proved wrong through the use of corruptness and mystery. In the 2014 film 'Gone Girl', their home becomes the main suspect for the killing of Amy. She is surrounded by these lies that she is a maternal, domestic and friendly person and a perfect wife, however she is a psychopath who uses people to make the media feel sorry for her. Through the use of setting, a psychopath would never be suspected in a quiet town which makes it ironic and more shocking when we find out what Amy really is. Furthermore, the idea that the neighbourhood is shown in big long establishing shots emphasises freedom but also consequently the isolation in which these towns are and how there is help close but not close enough. 

Inside the house, the idea of wealth is confirmed though the props and high key lighting. This covers up the idea of anything be wrong and reinforces the idea to the audience that their world is perfect. Again, a long wide shot is used to show the location and the main character, Nick's full body. By positioning the camera like this it emphasises that he is alone and isolated, while being surrounded by a world that seems perfect. It also makes him seem open and innocent which adds mystery to the scene because he is being blamed for his wife's death.

In the film, many different locations are used like California and New York as well as Missouri (A mid-west state) allows the audience the 'normal' standard locations in which most of the audience would live like and the 'typical' American icons; California and New York that audiences around the world know and are 'dream' like places to live and go.

Sound for Thriller (Abbie)

For our Thriller 'Out of the woods' we decided to use a soundtrack that would feel natural, we did this to compromise the setting of the woods and using sounds such as birds singing, a river flowing and wind. These naturalistic sounds lull the audience into a false sense of security thus making them feel like nothing could go wrong. As we have set the opening of our thriller in the woods we realised that we need some sound that reflect where we are

We used Murder of the crows - www.freesound.org/people/Frankie01234/sounds/214869/

The crows gave off a naturalistic sense but crows can also link to death symbolising what we see later on. This sound clip can be heard faintly making the atmosphere more creepy and working with the birds that were already in the background it created more of a sense of impending danger. We were going to use teddy bears picnic as that nursery rhyme shows the innocence of a child therefore making what he is about to find more scary. The happy melody of the song would of tricked the audience that everything was going to be okay but in the end we decided not to use it as it was not as effective as we first thought.

The main soundtrack we used - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GK9HkpbG9M#t=11

This is the soundtrack that we used throughout the thriller, the quick jumpy beat could resemble a fast heartbeat creating a suspenseful atmosphere. As the soundtrack repeats itself  this can lead to tension therefore making the audience want to carry on watching. The more artificial sounds of guitar also contrast with the naturalistic ambient sounds of the forest that were created making the thriller have a contrast of natural to unnatural which makes the audience seem off balance and uncomfortable.

The voices - http://www.freesound.org/people/tyops/sounds/235815/

The voices that we used were used very faintly throughout. This could make it seem like he is not alone in the forest creating more tension. Overlapping all of these sounds then creates a creepy atmosphere.


In conclusion what we achieved created a suspenseful atmosphere, also using sound that came from the forest to make it seem more natural so it contrasts making the audience uncomfortable.

Intertextuality in our Thriler (Lauren)

 Intertextual References (Lauren)

Intertexuality is an important convention to take into consideration when filming any genre of film or television show. It cross references popular culture and amplifies meaning within the media product. A show that utilizes this convention frequently is American cartoon Family Guy, that adds intertextual references for comic effect. 

Here Family Guy mimics a shot practically identically from the Thriller film North by Northwest, by Alfred Hitchcock in order to make the scene more humorous and attract a wider audience due to the 1959 release date of the film. Widening our audience is something we want to achieve with our intertextuality, hence using current immensely popular film, The Hunger Games, hopefully attracting a similar demographic of viewers.

Along with The Hunger Games, we also took inspiration from Inception and Sin City. Whilst studying the opening to Inceptionan idea was conceived in my mind to use an outdoor, daylight setting to film our Thriller, as well as having a character washed up either on a shore or a bank somewhere. Once we had established our plot it was decided this washed up character would be a corpse on the bank of a stream in making intertextual reference to Leonardo DiCaprio's character washed up and alive on a beach. The handheld camera shots used in this scene in Inception are to be mimicked when we film our Thriller opening, the canted angles intended to show confusion and disorientation. 

There are a series of shots we intend to lift directly from the opening of The Hunger Games and recreate for our Thriller with our protagonist. When we had decided upon the location, the woods, and that our character Georgewould use these woods as a playground we had to establish what kinds of things he would be doing and playing with. Once I had suggested we cast my cousin as George, who coincidently does a lot of archery, the idea of him playing with a bow and arrow fell into place. In current films it is characters associated with forests and woodlands who utilize bows and arrows, Merida from Brave, Legolas from Lord of the Rings and of course, Katniss from The Hunger Games. Because The Hunger Games is a dystopian Thriller, it has similar conventions that we wanted to explore in our Thriller as well as a very similar location setting. So we lifted the following shots and aim to mimic them in order to attract a wider modern young adult audience.

Finally we took inspiration from Thriller Sin City, and the equilibrium and disequilibrium that is shown within the film, or more simply worded, the ordinary meets extraordinary convention often explored in Thriller films. An ordinary moment in the beginning of Sin City is when The Salesmen offers The Customer a cigarette on a balcony looking over the city. The extraordinary moment is that he then turns and shoots her for no immediately established reason. The ordinary we want to show in ours is obviously our character George playing normally in the woods, all light-hearted and happy, this contrasting with the extraordinary moment at the end of him finding the corpse. We also took influence from the colours used in Sin City, the colours of red and black particularly, hence the red scarf and red gloves we will use whilst filming. Red connoting danger.