Evaluation; Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Name: Nigel Saunders

Occupation: Writer

Marital Status: Married

Age: 48

(the man below is just from google images, he isn't really Nigel!)

 

Through being a writer Nigel has formed a love of stylish cinematography found in niche market films of fairly unknown directors/producers. He likes to take the occasional trip to Cinema city to watch Scandinavian thrillers for their fantastic cinematography qualities and enjoy a glass of red wine. He hates main stream films with predictable story lines and over rated actors and directors. He feels that they use special effects and action packed explosions and violence etc to compensate for the unintelligent story lines and poor script writing. He much prefers films  where he will be required to use his brain, complete with a stylish use of mise en scene and varied camera angles/ shot types. He appreciates when the use of lighting creates suspense and various emotions. He is of a high social class and is known to look down his nose at people, he drives a posh car and uses long words in unnecessary social situations...

The diagram shows that Our Thriller is generally aimed at those in the 40+ age category, fairly gender equal but steering slighting closer to a male audience. Very niche market. 

Research into user ratings.

The Black Dahlia  is of a similar style to our film Corruption. The user rating of this film on imdb shows that its audience is fairly gender equal. Under the assumption that our film would have similar types of viewers, it suggests that our film would have a fairly gender neutral audience. 

Black Dahlia (2) by lizzieadcock

Evaluation; Question 2

Evaluation; Question 7

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

Since creating the preliminary task of ‘shooting a conversation’ I feel my understanding of varied shot types and camera angles and the effects they have is a lot more comprehensive. We had a lot more time to create our thriller openings which allowed opportunity to familiarise and experiment with the cameras and what different shot types and angles looked like. Putting the theory into motion has definitely extended by understanding of how it all works. In the preliminary task we stuck to the straight forward establishing shot with the occasional mid shot which makes for a not very stylised or sophisticated piece. Whereas the final piece was more varied, long shots, mid shots, close ups, extreme close ups and over the shoulder shots to convey different emotions and to create enigma and tension at certain points in the thriller.

Preliminary

Final cut

The longer time period meant the planning was a lot more thorough for our thriller than the preliminary task. This meant that the story line was more thought out resulting in it being more in depth and stylised with clear archetypes created by more sophisticated locations and mise en scene. The preliminary task was shot in school, in the clothing the actors had happened to wear that day, it didn’t require much planning or organisation. Our actual thriller required the planning and finding of suitable costumes to portray a corrupt detective and a damsel in distress, glamorous type character and the making of props to make the locations more believable. We also had to find the suitable locations, with a little added creativity to polish them off.  By filming in locations that were not in school it meant the filming schedule was less flexible, this required us to be more time efficient and organised.

Bad organisation - the cups are empty!

More sophisticated props

The use and understanding of the effects of different forms of lighting has also become a lot clearer. In our preliminary task we just used the natural lighting of the study hall, this didn’t require much thought or planning. In our thriller to achieve the perfect film noir style lighting we experimented with the use of single source lighting from a fairly vintage style lamp. This worked perfectly with the costumes and mise en scene to create a film noir style detectives office. It created enigma and cast strong shadows which are both iconic features of film noir.

More advanced editing was required to complete our thriller openings complete with the finding and downloading of sound and fonts most appropriate for our particular style. In the preliminary task, simple editing was used to create a fairly shoddy piece with rough cuts and very poor sound. In the final piece we trawled through several sounds and musical pieces to find the perfect tracks for our thrillers, we then had to download these and edit the footage around the sound, so that it was in time and specific shots would happen at specific points in the sound track, this helped to create tension in certain parts of the thriller. We used diagetic sound in parts along with the music, for example the sound of her footsteps and her trying to open the door. Apart from this we took out the sound from the footage and just had the music, this created a more stylish piece and avoided the cringeyness of poor sound quality. We also had to consider the effect and use of credits; this required us to find a font appropriate for the theme of our film noir style thriller, download the font and judge where the best position would be for them on the shot. All of this meant our understanding of the purpose and the effects editing can have more advanced than in the preliminary task. 

Use of titles

How my skills have developed?

Compared with the preliminary task I now have more confidence and better ability to use the digital camera to film various scenes using a variety of different shot types and camera angles to create enigma and tension. I can now work better with lighting and use it to create strong shadows and connote moral ambiguity which can be seen in this shot. 

I can also edit more efficiently and effectively and find music and fonts that will work well with the footage. I can also find locations and use creativity to make them more appropriate for our chosen film noir theme by constructing props, planning costumes and experimenting with lighting. 

What are the conventions of film noir?

Evaluation; Question 1

Location 2

The House

Originally we intended to use a multi storey car park for our second location but this proved difficult so we decided to change to this house, which would in the story be the house of Ruby's current lover. We will film in the evening so the lighting will make the location feel more claustrophobic and enigmatic, typical traits of film noir movies. 

The big wooden door and single source of light (porch light) will give the scene an eery feeling which teamed with music will increase the tension giving the audience the feeling that something bad is going to happen. The bars on the porch give a sense of entrapment, which suggests Ruby has no escape from her inevitable fate. 

We will use an extreme close up of Ruby's hand trying to open the door. This will add some confusion and the audience will wonder who's house she is trying to get into. This adds to the mystery and tension of the plot line as there are a lot of loose ends that will be explained later on in the film. The close up will give a sense of claustrophobia, which will highlight that Ruby is alone, making her seem more vulnerable. 

The open space of the drive up to the house is bleak and empty which suggests the loneliness of Ruby, it again will make her seem vulnerable and look small against the grand scheme of things. As we will film at night the space will look more suspicious - as in, it will heighten the feeling that something bad is going to follow.

This is where the attack will take place. This location is similar to large empty spaces used in films such as Essex Boys. 

Location 1

The Office;

We are going to use this business office located in Watton for the first part of the opening of our thriller. We will use props and lighting to make the office appear a film noir style detectives office. The big wooden desk covered in in various documents works really well to make it appear a police office. The office we have created is similair to locations seen in films such as Casino Royale and The Third Man. It is claustrophobic and enigmatic which compliments our story line and theme perfectly. The mounds of work suggest to the audience that our main character (Ted Lived) is a busy man, devoted to his job who has little time to do anything but work, it also hints at a dark side of him as his work is not neat in his office, it is sort of like an area of mess and destruction which pre-empts the role he will play in the film. 

We have made a folder to imitate a confidential police folder with images of a young girl attached to the top. The images of her are those that she doesn't know have been taken. This will make the audience wonder if his intentions are to protect her like a detective should or whether they are darker than that. Also placed on the desk is a passport and a map, this suggests that Ted travels, whether that's strictly business or for darker deeds, the audience will not know. This adds to the enigma of the storyline and our main character. 

Within the office is a filing cabinet which Ted will walk over to and get out the document. This is a typical piece of furniture featured in a police style office which make the location more realistic and believable in our thriller opening. Again the office appears similar to those featured in Casino Royale. It also suggests to the audience a feeling of secrecy, as within the filing cabinets are confidential documents. This highlights that Ted has an important, high class role in society as he is trusted with such secret documents.