Powerpoint

Tara did a presentation in front of the class, me and Rebeca were off because of illness. Tara though of two of the ideas and I though of one. Everyone though that the first idea was best, this was the forest idea. I think that Tara did well presenting the powerpoint on her own.

Single, two paters, anthologies & Soap opera's

Single or one of drama- begins and ends with a single episode- as part of a weekly showcase



Two parters- an extended drama that continues over 2 days.



Miniseries- similar to two parter or serial, you need to watch them all to understandSeries- usually week by week, a story running through. Can last a number of weeks. E.g. Doctor who. Continuing situation and characters, tend to be self contained within individual episodes



Anthologies- self contained narratives, they are connected by a similar theme. They focus on different charactersContinuing Dramas



(soap operas)- multiple characters and narratives, usually limited by geographical location.

Media production report

Production report



For my preliminary task me and my chosen group had to create and edit an opening for a thriller, looking at the age certificates we decided to make our opening a 15. We chose to make it a 15 because we felt that a 12 rating wouldn’t be able to show as much severity as we wanted, whereas an 18 is usually linked with sexual explicitly and substance use. So we decided a 15 was more suitable, Also there was the fact that most thrillers are rated 15.

Typical Thrillers are easily identifiable due to characteristics shown. A typical thriller usually has a punchy/ dramatic opening followed by a good strong storyline. The opening credits are usually set on a dark coloured background and the actors and actresses always have an edgy look about them. For example in ‘Seven’ Kevin Spacey plays the killer, this is a good choice because he doesn’t show any facial expressions, so he comes across as suspicious because his facial expressions don’t give anything away. Typical setting for a thriller could be somewhere or historical background: e.g. haunted house or a dark castle etc. However sometimes directors decide to go against this stereotype and set there thriller opening somewhere that is completely un-expecting and innocent. An example of an un stereotypical thriller is “Wanted”, there are numerous killings in everyday settings such as: In a shop and on a train. This is effective because the fact that through out the thriller the settings are all completely innocent and everyday kind of settings creates excitement because the audience are completely un-aware as to where and when the killings are going to take place. On the whole people associate thrillers with good guy, bad guy scenario’s, there is always a good and bad side, however unlike if a thriller is going to be successful it is obvious even from the opening two minutes.

I decided that the distribution organisation we would use to distribute our thriller would be Columbia pictures. I decided this because when I was researching Columbia and saw the number of thriller movies that Columbia have distributed and have been successful in doing so. Some of these are as follows: Panic Room, Trapped and the missing. Although there are other good organisations about e.g.: universal pictures I believed that using Columbia would give us the best chance of being successful.

For the first two minutes of a thriller have to be successful in keeping the audiences attention and therefore to make the audience want the audience to keep on watching. This is usually done by using scenes with intrigue and suspicion so that the audience are gripped and want to see what is going to happen next, effective camera shots need to be used to emphasise the severity of the situation, for example if someone was getting run over then appropriate camera shots and angles would be used to emphasise he ruthlessness of the activity and the harsh reality of the situation, if done effectively the audience will want to carry on watching to see the outcome of the situation and how it has effected the characters. Also good editing techniques need to be used e.g.: fading and rendering to make the opening to the best standard achievable. An example of a good piece of editing my group did was the slow motion section at the end before Jo gets hit by the car, the slow motion creates tension and emphasises the horror of what is happening,

My Thriller is targeted at teenagers/ young adults, this is because similar scenarios may happen to them in their typical teenage everyday lives. The movie is not suitable for younger children or the elderly, as they may the content disturbing or distressing. People around the age of about 18-30 especially may be able to relate to, or have experiences similar scenarios, because if at any age in your life you’re likely to get into trouble or get in with the wrong people it is at this age. Some thrillers e.g.: Halloween, are fictional because nothing like that could actually physically happen, whereas, with my thriller it is based on a factual scenario, ‘Jo’ the leading girl in ‘The Chased’ appears to be your typical teenage girl, the fact that the character is presented in this form of normality emphasises the realness of the situation and makes it easily relatable to other teenagers. The meaning I tried to portray in the thriller is that sometimes the harsh reality is that your worst dreams are not always that far away from reality, Jo’s flash back is ironic because the flashback it could also be portrayed as a nightmare or a flashback, this is significant as it emphasises the fact that for some people this nightmare is a reality.

The BBFC stands for British Board of Film Classification, this is an independent government body that submits films for classification, all movies are classified on three main criteria:
1) Is the material in conflict with the law?
2) Would the material be harmful to the age group concerned?
3) Is the material unacceptable to broad public opinion?

This is the BBFC’s explanation of what a 15 rated film will contain


Theme: No theme is prohibited, as long as it is appropriate to 15 year olds.


Language: Frequent use of strong language for example F**K, However the strongest terms, e.g.: C**t: will only be acceptable in justifiable conditions. Continuous use of strong language may be unacceptable.


Nudity: Nudity may be allowed in sexual context, just not in detail or to graphic.


Sex: Sexual activity may be portrayed, just not in detail, Also there may be strong sexual reference to sexual behaviour.


Violence: Violence may be strong, but not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury, sexual violence must be brief and discreet.


Horror: strong threat and menace are permitted. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable.


Drugs: Drug taking may be shown, but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage the miss-use of drug taking

Looking at this I see that my thriller opening is probably best suited to this, there is slight horror in the sense of Jo getting run over and this also shows violence to some extent. My thriller has no reference to sex, nudity or drugs, this is because my thriller in general has no reference to this kind of activity. Looking at this I think that we were correct in choosing a 15 certificate.

To get some audience information we produced a questionnaire and gave it to 15 people of different ages and sex. We asked questions such as: ‘What is your favourite kind of film’. We thought that by getting general information like this from a variety of different people it will make it obvious to us who we need to aim our thriller at. Looking at our audience research I can see that thrillers are mainly viewed by teenagers, with a slightly higher amount of boys than girls viewing them, also most people’s favourite actors and actresses are good looking. However thriller characters tend to be edgy looking and not stereotypically good looking. So we though that we didn’t want to have edgy looking characters, we decided to have good looking characters to give our thriller a variation. We decided to aim our thriller at teenagers of both genders. ‘Halloween’, another thriller is also aimed at teenagers 15+, this is obvious to see when you have a look at the BBFC criteria for a 15. My thriller is gruesome and frightening so therefore would not be suitable for young children. Halloween is also not best suited for people that are squeamish and don’t like blood, this is because it is full of gory killings and blood bath scenes. People that don’t like creatures or clowns would also not like this film because of the masks used, etc. On the whole the main target audience for ‘Halloween’ is teenagers, possibly more for teenage boys rather than girls. Our thriller ‘The chased’ is targeted at teenagers (possibly more boys) but still on the whole both, any social group or religion. Mainly people of about 15+, due to the fact our thriller is rated a 15. Thrillers in general` are not aimed at the light hearted and this tends to be more young children or old people, regardless of the age certificates it is known that children as young as 10 will be watching thrillers as their parents/ older brothers or sisters will rent or buy them for them.
I think our thriller appealed to our target audience successfully. By seeing people that are about the same age as you caught up in trouble or miss-happenings it brings a sense of realism to the storyline, that is why we though that by having a teenage leading character it would work successfully having the target audience as teenagers. I think we presented our teenage character well, Jo is your average teenage girl. There is a tendency that for thriller’s the main character is a boy, our first idea was to have a man lead, however circumstances meant that we had to change our idea and have a girl doing the ‘chased’ role. We are pleased that our lead is a girl now though, because it means a bit of variation from typical thriller characteristics and also gives us an edge over other thrillers. If our opening did meet the target audience’s expectations, the viewers would be looking for mystery, suspense and a gripping storyline and I believe through our opening we have all three. The gripping storyline is presented through the want to know what happens after the car hits Jo and the mystery and suspense is presented through the way the storyline is formatted.

When we filmed the opening we used a variety of shots. Some are as follows: A 180 degree angle shot, was used when Jo was talking to her carer, this was used to show both the characters facial emotions during this piece of dialogue. Jo’s sense of worry and confusion and the carer’s sense of apprehension for Jo’s safety. We used a few point of view shots, one was to show the carer’s view of Jo lying in bed, and the other Jo’s view of the carer when they carer is asking if Jo remembers anything. These shots are used to emphasise the emotion and detail of the characters facial reactions. Another really important point of view shot we used was when we saw Jo‘s flashback as she runs away from her follower, just before she gets hit by the car. The fact the point of view shot of Jo running is quite erratic and shaky emphasises the realism of the situation and makes the audience feel almost like they are in a simulation of the event. This helps to highlight the severity of the situation. We also used a panning shot to show the scenery and give the audience an insight to the setting of the scene. We also used make up and costume efficiently to make the opening have more of a sense of realism to it. We dressed Harriete (Who played Jo) wear Simple everyday clothing and we made Niki (the Carer) wear a white top and pencil skirt, by making the characters dress appropriately it makes the thriller appeal more professional and realistic. It was actually through circumstances on the day, but its good how it happened that the lead was a girl, originally the lead was going to be a male, but it has worked to our advantage in the end because by the lead being a girl it creates a sense of innocence and curiosity because the audience will wonder why she is being chased. The preliminary task I have got a bit more of a steady hand for shooting, and also I can shoot a 180 degree rule shot more accurately. Using Adobe Premier Pro I think I have developed better editing skills, I learnt properly how to razor pieces of footage I don’t want, how to put pieces of film together without pauses and how to make pieces of film blend together using the fade effect smoothly. Whilst shooting we came across a few difficulties, such as: Bad lighting, this occurred quite a lot, we had to specifically find a good location with suitable lighting for filming. With the editing we had difficulty trying to make the music work over the footage, we got our sounds for the thriller opening from ‘Sound snap’ (an online sound making website), we were not allowed to use music from artists or well known sounds for our opening.

Looking back on the Preliminary task I think I have definitely developed as a film maker. I have learnt so many new skills for example: special editing techniques, how to use different shots to work to my advantage and how to decide what shot would be most effect to portray a certain idea or mood. Some strengths of our preliminary task, things I think we did well are as follows: we planned well as a group. And we explored a whole range of different ideas whilst planning. However some downfalls of our preliminary task, that I think worked against us were: lack of communication skills with other people in the group and also time keeping when it came to filming the opening. What I’ve learnt from my preliminary task will definitely make me tackle my main task in a different manner. I will spend more time on planning idea shots and developing my ideas more thoroughly. During our preliminary task we had to make decisions as a group, for Example: deciding on the final idea and how we were going to present shots effectively. Originally our opening was going to be based in the woods. However, we made a group decision to use a long passage that led on to a road instead. Although this wasn’t originally our plan we felt it worked to our advantage in the end. We had many problems arise on filming day. Firstly we were given a faulty tape so we had to go back to school to get a new one. Also we didn’t have charged cameras because it they were meant to be charged by our mentor, but they were not. We had to film the inside scene first, so the camera had a chance to charge. We started filming at half eleven and we finished at three. We got lots of takes of each shot, we did this so we had a variety of shots to use to see which one looked better and also so we had lots to use incase any accident got deleted, didn’t work efficiently or got taped over. From this preliminary task I have learnt a few things and different filming and editing skills, therefore I would now know what to do differently next time, this would be: developing and researching ideas more thoroughly, if we had been more prepared we wouldn’t have changed the storyline last minute. I would also spend more time looking at potential ideas. The roles we played in our group were as follows: Rebecca was in charge of the storyboard; Tara was in charge of researching and coming up with the ideas. And I was in charge of costume and cast. I think by dividing the work load we made it easier to get everything done more thoroughly. As for filming and editing me and Tara did most of the filming and Rebecca did most of the editing. However all of us had a good go at both. Although I had occasional disagreements with one member of our group on quite a regular basis I think that we worked well together as a team and I would definitely work in the same group again.

Fimling and editing of the thriller opening

Filming and editing of the thriller opening!


On Wednesday we went out to film our Thriller opening. Our cast had changed from Harriette and Josh to Nicole and Harriette due to the fact that down to circumstances Josh wasn’t able to be in our film. Faulty cameras and changes in transport plans forced us to change our shooting plans a bit and thus the script as well. Instead of shooting the hospital scene at the school we completely changed this idea and went to Sam's house where we shot it in one of the bedrooms there. We changed it so that instead of the main character - Who then had become Harriette would be at a hospital would instead wake up after her carer (Nicole) enters the room. This indoors scene has also become the first scene rather than the second so the events now happens non-chronologically. The forest scene has also changed and become a city scene where the main character now runs down an alley rather than through a forest though she still will run out on a road and get hit by a car.We had some minor disagreements throughout the filming but eventually we had it done.The next day we started editing which took an unexpected amount of time as one of the programs we used crashed and we lost half of our work work. We also had a minor set-back as my memory stick was corrupted by the computer we used. We had to use my laptop along with a school computer since we could not make the sound work and we hoped that if we worked at the same time on each computer the editng process would go faster. I edited the sounds so they would fit the opening and although we did have a lot of disagrrements throughout the day we were still satisfied with the final outcome.We changed the title to The Chased and now the opening is about one minute and 20 seconds long.

Filming


We have had our filming date moved time over time since problems with weather and transport have occurred. Now we should be filming tomorrow and then starting the editing process on Thursday.Our cast:
Originally our cast was supposed to be Harriette as the carer and Josh as the lead character JoHarrietas JoNiki and the carerWe will edit our media on Thursday

Comumbia pictures research

The Film distribution group we decided to chose for our thriller was columbia pictures.



ColumbiA pictures has released the following since 2000:

Hollow Man
Panic Room
Trapped
The Missing
Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
Casino Royale
The Messengers



Seeing that all of these have been distributed by Columbia and have all turned out succesful made me and my group decide that using columbia pictures as our distributer a good idea.