What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The development of technologies
and the increase in social media users would aid the distribution of our
thriller opening, as websites such as Netflix, Love Film, and YouTube etc.
would allow us to broadcast our product to a wider audience. Also social
media's such as twitter and Facebook would allow us to advertise and share
'Hidden', again, creating a wider pool of people for our product to reach. As a
result in the increase of internet films being used over the original hard
copies on DVD's, if we were to distribute our product, we would look more at advertising
and distributing our product on the internet.
Our thriller opening is a low budget
production and has undiscovered actors, therefore our product would have a
limited distribution as the standard isn't up to the quality of the more high
end film productions. Optimum Releasing is a distribution company for low budget, British films. It has been involved with the distribution of films such as The Awakening (Nick Murphy, 2011) which is similiar to the type of film Emily and I created the opening to. This would be a good distribution company to approach as it distributes films similar to my thriller and my thriller meets the criteria required to be produced by Optimum Releasing.
A good way to broadcast our production is to enter competitions designed for the discovery of new or student film makers such as Emily and I. Other institutions that could aid the distribution of our product if we were to broadcast it would be schemes such as the British Film Institute who encourage and provide introductions to the film world for aspiring film producers such as myself and Emily. The American production company Quandary Productions could provide us with free promotion through social media, if we were to distribute our media product.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
When planning and creating our thriller Emily and I had an idea of basing our thriller around crime and teenagers being involved. The way in which we kept this theme was by having a male teenager committing the crime and a female teenager being a victim to a crime. Both of these are rather typical stereotypes that have been created by society.
Another way in which we placed emphasis on this was through the use of props and clothing. Emily's character was dressed in a very basic, everyday outfit and portrayed a 'damson in distress', a typical role carried out by females in other films and older generation made films. Also, the way in which Emily carried out this role, of carrying out a normal role of walking her dog before meeting a friend places the emphasis of a normal teenage girl. The use of a female creates a sense of sympathy from the audience as women are often viewed as vulnerable.
Harry's character, the male antagonist, is portrayed as a heartless, aggressive character. The way in which this is done is through his dark clothing, his over bearing character stance and aggressive nature towards Emily's character. A male teenager committing a crime is another stereotype we decided to portray in our opening sequence.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
A wide range of different technologies were used throughout
the planning, researching, filming and editing stages in the making of my
thriller opening sequence.
Blogging: The first piece of new technology I was introduced to was the blog in which I would log all of the progress regarding my thriller. I had no previous experience using this type of blog so I had to gain understanding of the controls that the blog use during the construction and publishing of posts. The main challenges I faced when learning how to use this piece of technology was the adding in pictures, videos and embedding links as I have no previous experience in doing this so I had to learn all of these. When adding in these elements to my blog I had to use multiple different types of media such as YouTube, Prezi (www.prezi.com), Soundcloud and www.freesounds.org. I was also unconfident when using some of these alternative websites as I have not previously used them. However, I have enjoyed using blogger as it allows me to access my work wherever I require without having to carry around large, heavy folders and reduces the chances of my work becoming lost or damaged.
Camera and Filming Equipment: To film our thriller footage we used a Canon 700D, I have not used this type of camera to shoot moving images before so it took me a while to get to grips with how to create images that stayed in focus when I changed the position of shots. However, once I found out how to do this, the other functions of the camera were easy to use. Also the preliminary project that I previously completed gave me the experience and practice I needed. This type of camera created very clear, sharp images and allowed us to play back our footage so we were able to see if the clips met the desired effect we hoped for. During the filming stage we used a tripod to create more stable shots, this greatly aided the quality of our product as the standard of filming increased greatly. This piece of equipment was straight forward to use, so I had no trouble with setting it up. We also used the tripod to shoot the travelling shots as this created a more steady shot than when we completed the handheld shots.
Editing: To edit our previously filmed
footage, we used Adobe Premiere Pro. Other than the preliminary project, I had
no previous experience with using this software. Due to my lack of experience
with the program I learnt a variety of skills. Some of these being; how to trim
pieces of footage, transitions such as fade and changing the saturation of
clips. Alongside the use of Adobe Premiere Pro, we were required to use Adobe
After Effects to create our titles. I again, have never used this software so I
had to learn all of the required skills linked with this program. I have gained
some useful skills using this program, such as how to create a title, how to
change the colour of the font and how to distort its appearance. To add
non-diegetic and diegetic sounds to my opening sequence, I had to use a number
of different websites, such as soundcloud.com and freesounds.org. Once I had
found the sounds I deemed suitable, I had to import them in to Adobe Premiere
Pro, this was at times time consuming as it took some time to crop them down to
ensure the sounds fitted with the right part of footage and did not overshadow
any other important sounds, occasionally this proved difficult as I found it
rather challenging to match the sounds of footsteps to the footage of the
footsteps of the male antagonist. However, once I overcame this hurdle, I found
the rest of the sound editing reasonably easy.
Internet: During the research and planning stage I regularly used the internet to gather videos and images to help with my research. The main websites I used were YouTube,to find clips to analyse, Weebly, to find past students work to analyse and regular search engines such as Google Images, to find snapshots of titles and ideas for costumes/props. Another use of the internet was for the marking of my blog at various stages; my teachers are able to view my online blog and use Google Classroom to provide me with feedback on my work to aid me with improvements. The internet was also used a great deal when I was searching for sounds during the editing stage. Also, I used YouTube to upload my final product on to before embedding it in my blog as it was the most reliable and safe way to make my thriller viewable for my teachers.
Research shows that males are more interested in watching action thrillers, where as psychological thriller attract more female viewers. Also, when a male is the protagonist or antagonist more women are likely to watch it due to them being attracted to this character.
Emily and I have created a mystery-thriller. The main audience for this type of thriller is
Before we made our opening sequence we conducted questionnaires on what types of films different age groups enjoy watching and what gender they are. We then used the results from these questionnaires to plan our thriller and how we were going to meet the needs of our desired audience.
Our questionnaire results showed that males aged between 15 and 19 years were most likely to watch thrillers. This is why we chose to have a male antagonist committing a crime, as our questionnaire results also showed that the thrillers based around crime were the most popular.
The questionnaire results allowed us to address our audience as we knew what they wanted to see in a thriller and allowed us to apply what they want to our own thriller opening.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When we created our preliminary project our filming and editing broke the rules of continuity, our thriller lacked suspense as it had continuous music and lacked a range of both non-diegetic and diegetic sounds.
During the production of our final thriller opening we tried very hard to follow the rule of continuity during the filming and editing. We tried to achieve this by filming our shots more than once and ensuring we filmed longer than necessary, also when we edited we ensured that our clips fitted in a chronological order and what the previous shot ended with, the next one starts with. For example, when Harry was walking we made sure that he wasn't stood still before he started walking and when Emily was walking we made sure she had her phone in her hand so when she stopped it matched the close up of her phone screen.
When we filmed our preliminary project we used very basic costume and props, the editing was done very quickly and the titles were created in a very basic format. When we created our final thriller piece, we created more interesting titles and ensured the editing was thorough. Also, during the planning stage we ensured that the props and costumes matched the storyline we were trying to achieve and created the characters we wanted.
From looking at the certificate rating criteria on BBFC, I believe that our thriller would be rated as a 15. The reason for this rating is, if we were to produce the whole thriller it would contain a high amount of threat and violence which will be accompanied by gory images and sadistic threat. Also, the thriller will contain frequent use of bad language.
This is the website and document used to define the age rating for my thriller:
Today in class we all watched each others final drafts before giving verbal feedback. Below is the response that mine and Emily's thriller opening sequence received.
Positive Feedback:
Really good ambient sounds that creates tension
the black and white created mystery because it creates an atmosphere change
Slow build of tension
Creates enigma with the dragging of the bag and the mysterious nature of the male antagonist
The production title fills its function and is good
The eye at the end of the sequence creates an enigma around the mans identity
Things that need improving:
The addition of ambient and diegetic sounds would improve the quality of the opening sequence
Some of the shots are too long so there isn't much drama, these need to be shortened or there needs to be more action within them.
When we first edited we added very basic titles and a limited amount of transitions between shots. In our final edit, we improved these to make them more professional and to a high standard, we also added sound effects to our production company.
Also in our first edit a few of our shots were shaky and needed to be improved. So Emily and I went out and refilmed these before adding them to our opening sequence, this helped improve the quality of our product.
Today Emily and I sat and renamed all of our re-filmed files before adding them to our other footage. We had to crop the starts and ends and change the saturation of the images we wanted to make look darker. We managed to do this quicker than last time as we are now more confident with using the software. However we did have to ask for assistance with changing the brightness of the shots as we have never done this before.
We changed our title to make it look more like it was dripping. This added to the suspence and enigma as it portrays blood.
Overall I am happy with how our opening sequence is looking as I believe that there is a large sense of narrative enigma and a slow build of suspense. As we edit we are ensuring that we do not break the rule of continuity and follow the conventions of a thriller.
In today's lesson Emily and I went to re-film the parts of our opening sequence that our peers believed needed changing/improving. Over the next few days we will edit these pieces in to complete our final edit.
The parts that we re-filmed were the close up, pans of the trees as both myself and Emily and our peers believed that the camera quality could be improved as some of these were shaky. Hopefully when we ask our peers their opinion on our final edit these improvements will not be mentioned for the wrong reasons.
After we refilmed
Before we refilmed
In filming today I believe that Emily and I worked well together as we took it in turns to re-film. Also before we headed to our filming destination we thoroughly planned how we were going to shoot each shot. This made filming much easier and effective as we got straight to filming, giving us more time to watch over our footage and change anything we weren't happy with.
However in filming today I wasn't particularly happy with some of the background noises as there were lots of people in the park. Hopefully these sounds won't show up on our footage as the continuity of our filming with change as they weren't there in our previous footage.
In today's lesson Emily and I created our titles for our opening sequence. We created a production name, added actors names, casting by and a film by.
We mixed our last names to create our production company (Brook FarmProductions)
Emily and I decided to search for logos that we could use as our production company, these are a few that we found:
We chose the above logos as they are simple but effective. They also combine the initials of the production company we have created. The first logo is easy to read and fits the purpose, however it would be difficult to view on our background on which our production company title sits on. The second logo chosen is large and clear to read, it serves its purpose and is also more creative than the first one. This is why we have decided to use this one instead.
We created a list of casting by:
Emily Brookes
Hannah Farmer
We created a list of our actors:
Harry Farmer
Emily Brookes
Leland Orser
Pamala Tyson
Delilah Paltrow
T.Ray Massee
Rosallena Borden
Peter Starstruck
We created a list of people involved with the costume and filming:
Our thriller opening is a low budget
production and has undiscovered actors, therefore our product would have a
limited distribution as the standard isn't up to the quality of the more high
end film productions. Optimum Releasing is a distribution company for low budget, British films. It has been involved with the distribution of films such as The Awakening (Nick Murphy, 2011) which is similiar to the type of film Emily and I created the opening to. This would be a good distribution company to approach as it distributes films similar to my thriller and my thriller meets the criteria required to be produced by Optimum Releasing. 
A good way to broadcast our production is to enter competitions designed for the discovery of new or student film makers such as Emily and I. Other institutions that could aid the distribution of our product if we were to broadcast it would be schemes such as the British Film Institute who encourage and provide introductions to the film world for aspiring film producers such as myself and Emily. The American production company Quandary Productions could provide us with free promotion through social media, if we were to distribute our media product. 
