Overall, I feel that our thriller went very well and fits the conventions of the thriller films we researched. In many of the thrillers we watched, we noticed that the opening credits can last between 2 and 10 minutes long. As we only had a time limit of 2 minutes 30, we had to condense all of the opening credits in that time. The opening credits fits the conventions of other thrillers such as the Sixth Sense and Memento because nothing is explained fully in the first 2 minutes of the films. This means that the audience are left questioning what has happened in the first 2 minutes and makes them want to carry on watching. As Poppy and I found out from our audience survey, a lot of the people we questioned said that they found our opening sequence quite confusing. This was what we aimed to achieve because The Sixth Sense did exactly this. (the audience see the main charcter get shot and then he is up and walking again in the next scene). Our opening sequence also fits the conventions of psychological thrillers because there is not much talking in the opening sequence of The Secret Window. We decided not to use too much talking because if the audience have to concentrate on what the characters are saying straight away, the audience may feel that they have been left in the deep end. So just some music and change of tempo and pitch helps introduce the characters to the audience gradually. This is so that the audience can have a general idea about what the charcter is like and their main role in the film. Our opening sequence also fits the conventions of a thriller because the name of the film does not come up at the start of the film, it comes after the opening credits. This happens in a lot of films, not just thrillers. An example of this is The Secret Window because the first thing the audience see is the main character sitting in a car in the rain. Our opening sequence challenges the conventions of thrillers because quite a lot happens in a short space of time in our thriller, where as in other thrillers such as What Lies Beneath and Seven, not much happens in the first 2 minutes. I think this is because the directors do not want to confused the audience too early on in the film. We, however needed to have a lot happen in our film because we needed it to all flow on from each shot to try and bring forward what our film is actually going to be about.
Our media product represents particular social groups by having young actors/acrtesses in our opening sequence. By doing this, it should interest a younger target audience which we were aiming to do in the first place. We used a young girl as the main character because young children are generally seen as innocent characters, however this is not the case in our thriller. This is a reverse stereotype. To try and make the innocent stereotype stronger, we made sure the girl was wearing natural make-up and a dress. We also made sure she had her hair in bunches and that her iconic item which would represent her throughout the film would be a balloon. The other character represents the stereotypical teenager who bullies their younger siblings. This character was wearing all black and a leather jacket. Black is associated with power, elegance, formality, death, evil, and mystery. We shose this colour because the audience will assume that this character is the villian, however this is not the case.
The media institution which might distribute our media product would be Universal Studios. This is because they are very successful and also seem to do a lot of thrillers which are similar to ours. Some well known thrillers which Universal Studios have produced include The Birds, The Bone Collector, The Thing, Dead Silence, Psycho, The Skeleton Key and The Strangers.
Looking back at our final product, I think that the target audience should be for people aged over 18 years old. This is because it is quite a confusing opening sequence and all the people who did not understand it were aged under 18 years old. I still think that the target audience should be for a younger audience because there is younger characters in the film. This means that the audience will be able to relate to the characters easier.
To attract/address our audience, the first shot was of a man writing some instructions. This made the audience immediatly concentrate because they need to understand what is being written. We also used low key lighting and did not show the face of the man who was writing the instructions. This attracted our audience because they will want to find out who it is and why he is writing it. There was also red lighing using in that shot to signify blood, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love. Slow, low-pitched music was used as well as a voice-over of what is being said. This is to build up the tension and make the audience want to find out what will happen next.
To keep our audience interested throughout the opening sequence, we changed the voume, pitch and tempo of the music through to make it more exciting for them to watch. We also used a variety of camera shots and angles to make it more appealing on screen.
Overall, I have learnt how to film with the shot being smooth. This is especially important for the tracking shots we have used. There are a few ways to over come this. We attemped to place the camera on a office chair with wheels and using some string to pull it along, however this technique did not work for us. Therefore, we had to make sure we used a steady hand. If a shot was jumpy and not very smooth, I learnt how to edit the shot so that it would flow smoothy onto the next shot.
I was very surprised about the length of time it took us to edit every shot because we filmed each shot about 3-4 times each and at different angles to see which one would look the best. This meant that it took us a very long time to edit our film. We came across a very implications on the way. One problem which occured was that the character who was running seemed to be running in different directions each time she was on screen. This meant that the shots did not flow smoothly into eachother. Therefore we had to rearrange the shots to make sure the character was running in the same direction throughout the film. Another issue was that the character who was running was sat down half way through the film. This meant that we had to try and move that shot into another part of the film. This meant that the soundtrack was not in the right place and we had to place the soundtrack correctly.
Looking back at out priliminary task, I can see a huge improvement. The preliminary task prepared us for our main task and the problems we might encounter. We used the same type of effect with the flashback and the use of the eye because we found out that it worked very well in our preliminary task. We also learn, during our prelimary task, that voices could not be heard if it was filmed outside due to background noise such as the wind and cars. To overcome this, we learnt how to use voiceovers.
To improve our final product, I would slow down the pace a little bit so that it gives the audience time to adjust and think about what is going on. I would also try and make the plot a little clearer by possibly having a scene which shows the connection between the two characters a bit clearer rather than going straight to a flashback. Finally, I would also try and make the voice-overs not as long and more clearer so that the audience have a better understanding of what is going on.
Laura Knapp
