Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation Question 7

7. From our preliminary task, which featured me losing my phone under a set of stairs and molly helping me finding it, was used as a mock production before our opening thriller sequence, a chance for us not only to work on our acting skills, but also get familiar with using the camera and tripod and explore it's uses, and also practise possible camera shots in situations that we could implement into our main production. From our preliminary task to our main production, I myself learnt a number of things. Based on watching the preliminary task back and looking at our main production, the first thing I noticed was the use of camera angles were far better in the main production compared to the preliminary task, for example, throughout the preliminary task, it only really appeared that we used mid-level and medium shots, showing a lack of diversity, however this changed in our main production drastically, using a wide range of camera shots, such as high angle, panning and P.O.V. This showed that not only myself, but my group members had gained a better understanding of camera use and the effects it can have during this time and I was able to make suggestionsn when creating our group storyboard and designing our frames. It seemed only one camera angle, a medium shot was used during the preliminary task, which greatly changed in comparison to our main production. Our main production obviously turnt out much better than our preliminary task, and I had learnt different things in general about things such as sound technique and mis-en-scene in general and how it can be used to draw in an audience and set the tone for the audience in a scene, by then my skills and knowledge had improved, as did my group members, which played a part in our production being successful. A difficulty we had of the preliminary task was that we did not know much about filming and appropriate camera shots to suit situations, but we overcame this with experimenting, and looking back at our filming on the camera at the time to decide whether or not we were satisfied with the shots, which lead to us finally settling on which shots we were happy with, and our knowledge of camera use and editing greatly improved through making our production, as we spent more and more time with the cameras to gain more experience and knowledge to help us complete our productions. If I had to do anything differently from my preliminary task, I would improve my acting, because if it was better and I could've impressed then, maybe I could've been the main character, Cameron in my production, and in my next media coursework filming assignment, I hope to take a main role and further showcast the potential of my acting skills.

Me and Molly acting in a shot

A close-up of me acting in the scene

Experimenting different shots (Long shots)

Evaluation Question 2

2. Our media product featured a male antagonist, and two female victims, which is very conventional to a thriller, as this is one of the main features and what you would commonly expect to see in a thriller, for example, it is present in Alfred Hitcock's best-seller "psycho". This is conventional and common as females are usually seen as easier to overpower, which makes the audience more fearful and draws them in more if they see a female being attacked instead of a male, as it builds further suspense as their feelings of fear are stronger. As many people are used to seeing this, we did not try to change a typical and standard convention, as although we wanted to be a little bit different, we did not want to take too many risks in doing so incase our audience did not like our production.In our production, the male is displayed as powerful, unpredictable and dangerous, like many other thrillers, an example being hannibal lector from silence of the lambs, who displays all of these characteristics, however we also tried to display cameron slightly differently in a less-stereotypical and a more subersive fashion, as he had a bad childhood, showing he is depressed and emotionless, but it is not his fault, meaning that the audience show sympathy for the antagonist, which is rare for a thriller and I believe a good twist yo our production, as it also draws the audience as they have many emotions and feelings towards the antagonist. The females in our production are displayed as worried and innocent, like many in most succesful thriller films, meaning it is stereotypical, as it is a main convention of the genre and we used it in our production seeing as it had been so well known and successful in the film industry. Although we wanted to be different, we did not change the stereotype of women in thriller films, as although subersive plots such as the plot in silence of the lambs where the main protagonist is an aggressive dominant female has worked before, audience are used to seeing women as vulnerable, powerless and endangered, and in the past this has been the most common formula to grip and attract an audience. The characters appeal to the audience in a number of ways, Cameron's girlfriend is a typical, outgoing and innocent teenage girl, which many females aged 14-19 who view our production can relate to. Our main antagonist, Cameron is an emotionally confused and depressed character, which may be hard many member in our audience to relate to, however the audience feel sympathy for him, as the problems as has been through are not his fault and it's almost as if he cannot help it, bringing out strong feelings from the audience towards him.

Shot of Cameron stalking his Girlfriend

Cameron killing his mother

Evaluation Question 1

1. My product; Disutrbia managed to use, develop and also challenge real life thriller media products in a number of ways. In a thriller film, it is usually expected that there is a main antagonist and protagonist, with the story usually being the two battling each other, with suspense and tension created leading up to this, followed by surprise and shock. Your typical thriller may feature the following conventions, such as a powerful dominant male being the main antagonist and a vulnerable female being the main victim, usually seen with blonde hair, films such as the shining and psycho are both examples of vulnerable female victims being hunted by a powerful male antagonist. Suspense, shock, tension and surprise are the four main elements of a thriller, which are usually built by micro-elements, such as mis-en-scene, sound, lighting and cinematography. My film builds tension in a number of ways, especially during the kitchen scene, where iconography and slow editing is used to build suspense, where Cameron grinding the knife gets slower and slower, coming to a sudden point where he slams it into the plate, the audience are taken away by this, which further draw them into the scene, which then leads into the shock where Cameron kills his own mother. My film also followed the generic conventions of a thriller in a number of ways, having a dominant and unpredictable male antagonist have weak and vulnerable female victims, as Cameron kills his mother and the ending features a cliffhanger where his girlfriend is in danger. This can be compared to a thriller such as the shining, where the main character, Johnny is hunting an innocent, weak and vulnerable female, which is his wife. Although our character is not as insane, he too like Johnny is mentally unstable and the added sense of unpredictability creates suspense and keeps the audience on edge, wondering what will happen next.

Tension:

Shock:

Surprise:

Eery Music

Suspense

Slow editing

Final Group Thriller- Miss Georgiou

West Htach High School-16807

Jake Butler- 9313

I also worked with Molly and Claire

Molly Emmerson- 9327

Claire Golightly- 9334

Rough Cut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NWTiw5BU7A

Audience feedback is important to any group/director about their sequence for a number of reasons. It allows the directors of the sequence to see peoples real opinions of the production, it is useful for knowing what went well, what the audience didn't like about it, and also what to change for next time if you were to make a sequel or second production. Feedback from various members of the audience allows you to gather an insight of what people thought in general about your production.

We recieved various feedback from our potential/actual audiences before and after the film in a number of ways, using questionnaires, vox pops, and also actual youtube comment reviews about our thriller sequence. The questionnaires towards our intended target audience allowed us to see what they prefer in a thriller film, such as weapon used, villains identity and sub-genre of thriller e.g crime, psychological. Our vox pops were used to show visual evidence of this and real-life interviews, which were also posted to youtube. After hearing and taking the comments into account, we then set about making our own thriller sequences in groups, looking to make them as effective as possible and also appeal to the needs of our target audiences after hearing their opinions.

Here we have four youtube comments that are reviews from people who watched our sequence, and these comments were left under the post of our uploaded thriller production.

Looking at the top comment from Kerry Boyne, we can see that she was generally pleased with what she saw and liked our production, giving us credit for our narrative, which in her opinion made the sequence "interesting and engaging" which meant we succesfully were able to draw her into the plot and the sequence itself. Another positive to take from this comment that our low-key lighting used throughout was pretty effective as it built tension. Kerry believed that we could have maybe left the titles up longer so that they were easier to read and that also a darker filter should've been used during the suicide scene to further set the tone. I believe overall this was a very positive comment, Kerry clearly enjoyed our sequence, and if out of two constructive comments she could only find the timing of titles to be a bad point, then our sequence was effective at drawing her into the plot and at the same time entertaining her.

From Amy's comment, we noticed that she pointed out slightly different positives about our sequence compared to Kerry, instead praising our use of Cinematography and camera angles, as well as the acting in the scenes. She thought we could use more sound at the final point of the sequence to build more tension and suspense. This could also add shock to audience, as they would not expect it, which is a good point to take from Amy as she could be right and maybe this would've made the ending more effective, however adding suspenseful and shocking sound to a character appearing from no where would almost pretty much be a jump scare, which is very typical and common in the thriller genre and we have stated from the start that we didn't want to be so one dimensional and sterotypical and also seperate ourselves to have our own style, plus it was revealed in our questionnaire that most people nowadays would actually prefer if a thriller film did not contain jump scares.

From Malu's comment, we can gather that like Kerry, she also liked our narrative, which means it was clearly effective if others were agreeing with this statement, however Malu also shared constructive comments with Kerry and Amy about the sounds behind used when morgan is in the frame, which shows this was a clear negative in our sequence, as it was a common constructive comment and that we could have clearly done better to make the end of our sequence more effective.

From Bettie's comment, we can see again our audience liked our transition of shots and use of them, but also another common negative as she also felt our credits did not appear long enough, but it is evident that she enjoyed our sequence as this was the only negative that she could point out, meaning overall, apart from the sound used when Cameron appears in shots, our thriller sequence was effective, the audience were drawn in and engaged into our narrative, and we displayed our scenes and shots well with good camera shots.

In conclusion, the audience in general liked our narrative, and were very impressed with our shots, meaning Claire did a very good job in her role as filming the scenes. We could however have done better towards the end of the sequence to build even more of an atmosphere and create shock and more tension for the audience, but overall we were clearly effective in doing this otherwise, and our sequence recieved generally positive reviews and it's clear to see our audience were staisfied.

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