Final Video

Evaluation 7 - Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To Full Product?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fYWYoGSsGg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=senQNtoURls

Evaluation 6 - What You Learnt About Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product?

 We used many different social media websites when producing our thriller. For example we used twitter in a way to gain a fan base like you would with a normal film production company would do. We made regular tweets with things like photos containing images of what we was doing during that time so it varied from doing blogs in lesson or doing blogs while shooting during the day. We followed many people that was either in the film industry or had some sort of connection to people in this industry as it was the sort of audience was trying to gain information and ideas from.

Twitter-We used many different social media websites when producing our thriller. For example we used twitter in a way to gain a fan base like you would with a normal film production company would do. We made regular tweets with things like photos containing images of what we was doing during that time so it varied from doing blogs in lesson or doing blogs while shooting during the day. We followed many people that was either in the film industry or had some sort of connection to people in this industry as it was the sort of audience was trying to gain information and ideas from.

Vine-Twitter wasn’t the only piece of social media we used during our time, we also used vine as well.  We thought this was a good idea as vine is an app were you can do short video clips for 6 seconds, meaning while we was shooting we could do short clips to post onto vine that would build up overtime. This enabled people that followed our account to also gain access to what we was doing and see different idea we was coming up with like trial and error to see what come across well, because on vine people can like your posts this also made us see what ideas were popular and what ideas wasn’t too good so this help us when selecting this for the final thriller!

  

Instagram-Instagram was also an app we used during the time we tried to promote and advertise our production company. it is easy to upload photos  this is why we liked the app because it is then easy for people that follow you to see the photos you have uploaded which is good for promotional reasons. Also another good thing Instagram offers is that if someone likes your photo it instantly goes onto a page were the people they follow can see and then view this.

YouTube-YouTube was a very to our group because It meant we could watch previous thrillers and gain new ideas that we could then bring forward into our thriller when producing it.We also used it to upload new pieces we had done so that it could then be view and people could see what we had been doing! We also used it has a place to store all our finished pieces on one page making it a link though other videos we had posted, so after every video had finished we would then suggest others we had made. 

Evaluation 5 - How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience?

Evalutation 4 - Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

AUDIENCE

When referring to people may not wanting to watch our thriller, this category of people could be a more adolesent audience. People who are younger and not yet able to fully understand proper conventions and codes of a thriller. This audience may just be plain scared of the given situation and not fully understand the connotations that the story line holds.

Similarily, people of a much older generation may not fully understand these contextual factors as they do not have any knowledge on the connotations.  

Evaluation 3 - What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product And Why?

This is a slideshare of our evaluation 3, however due to not having powerpoint the circumstances have changed. If you click the down arrow, it misses out some of our work, so instead you will need to scroll down with your mouse.

Evaluation 2 - How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

Evaluation 1 - In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

The Title of the Film

The title of our thriller develops forms and conventions of a film opening. We chose the title "The Following" as it allows the audience to interpret the film coming up. We also felt that it gives the impression that the film is going to be quite scary and un-easing. Many people suffer traumatic experiences from being followed every year. We have decided to use this to help express the fear people go through. We watched a lot of different types of thrillers, most of which had names specifically about what was going to occur in the film. Taking this into consideration we felt as though we would follow forms and conventions and went with "The Following".

Setting/Location

The location of our opening is split between an empty car park and a dark alley. Both of these locations were chosen to give the audience the impression of loneliness and helpless. After watching other thrillers of followers and stalkers we wanted to use dark and small locations, adding to the loneliness. Switching between locations increased the vibe of loneliness and also helped create a variety of shots available, giving us more ideas and possibilities. The two locations contributes to forms and conventions of a thriller as it is helping the audience to portray their own interpretation of what is going to happen next.

Costumes and Props

We created a poster of one of our locations as a prop in our thriller. We managed to put it on to a pillar in the car park and smeared dark lines across the back of it. This was to create fear in the character and tension amongst the audience. We felt as though using the poster by itself did not create the fear and tension we wanted, and so managed to add dark lines to the back of it acting as finger marks. By sticking to the theme we decided to have the "follower" dressed in all black with only his eyes showing so that he cannot be seen. We felt that by doing this we were contributing to forms and conventions of a thriller as it is creating a dark and mysterious vibe.

Camera Work and Editing

At the very beginning of our thriller we had the name of our group appear in an empty alley. Straight away this tells the audience that the oncoming film is going to be spooky. We used iMovie which had a selection of film openings, however there was only one creepy theme which made it easy for us to choose. In the middle of our opening a sequence of flashes occur showing the character wearing full black with only his eyes on show coming closer and closer. This develops to forms and conventions of a thriller as it helps portray that the character is the "bad guy". Throughout our thriller we used a variety of camera shots and angles to help create tension amongst the audience. Due to our chosen locations, we able to use more shots than expected and so changed the way we envisioned our film.

Title Font and Style 

At the beginning of our thriller we introduce our actors on 2 separate sides of the clip. This is based on the opening of cape fear, where the names of the actors playing the "bad" characters appear on the right and the names of the "good" characters appear on the left. We also slightly changed the font of the "bad" character to help the audience distinguish who is who. We felt as though by using the same features as cape fear, a famous and high quality thriller, we are following codes and conventions of a typical thriller.

Story and how the Opening Sets it up

Before we started filming our thriller we decided we wanted to create a tense atmosphere and a sense of loneliness. We also wanted to use two different settings in time, for example using flashbacks, future visions etc. By watching our opening we feel as though we have portrayed this through a variety of key features, the main being our choice of locations. Our location settings gives the audience a sense of loneliness and creates an un-easy vibe. Also when the camera zooms into the poster from the wall the shot goes to a flashback, then returns back to present time and current events.

Genre and how the Opening Suggests it

The genre of our opening scene is a thriller. A key feature of thriller is the unknown and unease and so we wanted to create a never ending atmosphere so the audience felt like there was a risk the whole time. We wanted them to empathise the "follower" throughout our opening and engage the audience to make them feel as though they know what will happen next. Our opening to a thriller starts with an everyday protagonist which is usually seen in a thriller, we also had music playing over the top. This creates an tense atmosphere and it makes the audience feel as though something bad is going to happen to him.

How Characters are Introduced

In the opening of our thriller the audience is introduced to 2 main characters. We introduced the "good" guy first with a point of view shot into a middle shot to show that it is his life being affected. We then switch locations to the dark alley where the "bad" character is introduced. Due to the location and the clothes he is wearing, it is easy for the audience to interpret that he is the villain. When the location is switched back to the car park, both characters are seen, allowing the audience to create a further interpretation of them.

Final BBFC Rating

Our final thriller opening now being complete, we assigned a rating to it that evidently suited the themes and conventions of a thriller it holds.We also took into account that modern and common thrillers are usually rated above a 12a. This is usually due to the frightening and scary nature of them. Therefore we decided to rate it a 15.   

 Our thriller does emcompass many thriller stereotypes. We tried to swerve away from swearing, dialogue and gore so we could maintain a 15 rating. We did not want to venture about a 15, to enable more people to be able to view our thriller and appreciate the contextual connotations our thriller has.

Spell-check

Before publishing our posts we wanted to make sure we spelt everything correctly, and so used spell check to make any changes needed. The above example is for the word moodboard, the dictionary could not find this and so gave us the suggestion of mood-board.

Filming Permission

During the filming stages of our thriller, we had to ask permission to film in a particular place, at a particular time of the day. This meant that the public, and authorities like police were not suspicious about what we were up to. In some circumstances what we were doing looked very mischievous, and we asked for permission to film our scenes by going through the effort to ask, in order to avoid inconvenience and misunderstanding.

In a scene when we filmed in a car park opposite a police station, on a weekend night around 7pm, where the protagonist is being pestered and persistently followed by the mysterious character, we made sure we asked across the road and informed the police that the boy dressed in all black with nothing but eyes showing, overlooking the police station was infact part of our media project and to no harm of the public. They were entirely understanding and it enabled us to be able to film effectively without knowing what we are doing is a worry to the police/public. We as a group decided it was best to let the police know, so that none of us were arrested for the night!

By asking for permission it just put our worries at rest, although the property was not private that we filmed on, we did not want passerbys and other users of the car park to be startled in any way.

We also filmed down a public alley which suited our themes and conventions of our thriller. People walking up and down would often need reassurance that we were not going to attack or harm them! If someone was walking by we would stop filming and either discuss the next shot or give a polite smile or short word of consideration that we didn't intend to act in a disturbing way.

Throughout our filming we did not want to upset or pester the public. So we made sure that when we were filming, we were considerate of other people and certain situations. 

Rough Cut

This is our first draft for our final thriller. We felt as though we were ready to hand this in however after asking a few people to watch and tell us what they think about our film, we felt to had to alter it a bit. The main criticism we received was that our film does not have any titles showing the audience who is in the film etc. We wanted our audience to enjoy and rate our film as highly as possible, and so to ensure this we decided to add credits over the top of our film showing who stars in it and also who filmed it. By doing this we were able to make our film to the best of our ability from our second attempt. This saved us a lot of time, instead of having to make 2 or 3 drafts we were able to focus on finishing our blog.

Initial Ideas

This is a mind map of our initial ideas. We created this when first discussing what our thriller should consist. After coming up with ideas as to what we could have included in our film, we decided to think of production names, which are shown in the bottom left hand corner. We had many choices of how to plan our thriller but ended up deciding on a mind map, we felt it was the quickest and most efficient way to put all our ideas together and get them down on paper. We just put "ideas" in the middle and had branches coming off it with a particular theme, we would then expand on that theme for the next branch.

Audience Feedback

This is a voki, it is a virtual character which is speaking what one of our viewers has said about our thriller.

Editing Diary

This is a screenshot of our editing process.