MY FINISHED THRILLER

Here is my thriller sequence, 'Submerged'. If annotations come up on the screen just click the red speech bubble and this will make them disappear. ENJOY!!

TASK 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

In the Prelim task there was very little creativity needed as we did not come up with any of the ideas ourselves. We got given the storyboard which we had to follow down to a tee. We got given the shot types and dialogue. It was very specific and this was a good first step for us to follow so that we got used to the different shot types and using the camera. I didn't realise before this task that you had to shoot absolutely everything at all the different angles as I thought that you could just film one piece of dialogue at one angle and another at a different angle then put them together. I feel that the preliminary task really helped with my understanding of how to use the camera and the editing process (although not very creatively) as it helped me understand how to use FinalCut Pro and also how we needed to make sure that the shots really matched up. Our editing in our thriller was a lot more complicated to our prelim yet it looked also more smoother (for example the entrance of the man walking in, to sitting down).

The cast that we used for our prelim were two members of our group. We did not have any choice for who our cast was. However in our thriller we had a lot of choice who could be in our thiller - yet unfortunately one of the actors that we wanted to be in our thriller was ill. By having the choice of actors it made us able to choose people that we want for our target audience and who would be able to look realistic for the role we wanted them for. By being able to cast it ourselves it was down to us how we represented them - as we came up with the dialogue, the costume, and everything that they did. It was important for our thriller that we had the right cast for our storyline to be believable. For both of our tasks we worked well with the actors, and I think my group was a good group that made them feel at ease. For our first task it was very easy to feel at ease as we are all good friends, and from that task I took the skills of directing and used them in the making of our thriller. All of our group all wanted the same result, and we all worked as a team doing all the jobs needing to be done to produce an end result that we were all happy with. Although one of our actors was ill, the actor that filled in (Phil) really saved the day and we are pleased with his performance as he did a very good job especially considering the late notice! Both of our actors really got into role, and they looked how we wanted them to look so that they would appeal to our target audience. Here is the cast for both of our tasks (left is the prelim, right is the thriller):

                       

The fact that we could come up with our storyline ourselves and not follow a structure,  immediately made me and my group want to do a successful thriller that was completely 'original'. It was important that we listened to each others ideas, and contribute to what we would do differently and what we like - there was definitely no time for sitting back, we all had to be on the ball and say what we thought otherwise we wouldn't get anywhere. Creating the piece was all about working together as a team and really discussing ideas in detail until we decide it will work or won't work. The main thing that we wanted ours to be was unique. We wanted our idea to be something that had an immediate interest to people instead of having to go into a lot of detail to get interest.

By coming up with the idea of having a submersible we had to come up creatively how we would remake a seabed. This put up many questions of how we were going to achieve this. It had to be realistic looking, and it had to look like it was of a massive scale (like the sea). By coming up with the idea of shooting in a fish tank with an underwater camera for the shots of what the men can see, and using a Sony NX5 for the establishing shots it shows the improvement of creativity of camera work and also on the set of the thriller. Getting all of the props and really structuring how we were going to create this world took a lot of preparation but all of us in our group wanted to achieve this so we had many long chats about how we would get it right.

It was up to us what shots we did and by making the storyboard it gave us some structure that could also be broken at any time. It was a way of seeing what kind of shots we wanted so that on the day we made sure we got these but that we could change what parts we used the shots for. We decided early on that we wanted to start from black and see the submersible coming close to the camera. This is an establishing shot but also makes the audience wonder what it is. In the drawing for this shot it was a lot lighter but we really wanted that sense of mystery to be there and this was a reason for making the shots so dark. By doing shots like these it shows how much more creative I have become in the use of camera work and that the shots from the prelim were reasonably basic compared to the shots used for the thriller where I filmed with an underwater camera (Go Pro). It was great to be able to have the storyboard as it gave us a clear starting point, but by having the oppurtunity to do things completely differently made us be able to have an open mind about it. Although a lot of the shots did happen to be similar to our storyboard, by having the Preliminary task it shows that sometimes one that you think will work, may not. And we didn't realise that we would use so many shots of the seabed - but it just so happened that this is one of the most suspenseful aspects of our thriller. As soon as we came back to the two men it made the audience be able to sit back and have a breather - so it was important that we were always thinking about what would make the audience uneasy and this was something that we got mainly from the shooting day (and also in the editing process).

For our thriller we were able to use all of the editing software how we wanted to (this is something that we were not able to do during the Prelim task). We were able to create a soundtrack and add non-diegetic and diegetic sounds to our thriller. It gave us a lot of freedom and really enabled us to make it look like how we wanted it to look. One of the problems that we had was making the crash look affective. We shot the crash having our two actors reactions - however because they are both not actors their reactions did not look affective or realistic so we had to come up with a plan b. Without the software it would have been awfully hard to come up with what we could do, but we decided to take a shot of the underwater and then one of us swooshed our hand across the camera. We were able to edit the sound of the crash (which we had made by slamming a door of a metal container) with the darkness of the hand going across the shot of the seabed. This created the affect of something coming close to the submersible and crashing into it.

TASK 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

To show what I have learnt about the technologies I have annotated our thriller. Please click the red speech bubble to get these annotations to appear on screen.

TASK 5 - How did you attract/address your target audience?

The target audience for our thriller was males over the age of 18. One of the ways that we attracted our target audience was in our casting. We showed our two characters as being heroic and powerful, this aspires our target audience because this is what males of 18+ years want to be like - this may be a reason for them watching our film as they want to be able to be like these men. However, the actors we used aren't your sterotypical heroes of big, muscular heros, which shows that the target audience can relate to them. Instead of them being unrealistically manly, we wanted to show that they are just your average normal blokes who become heroes, which gives out the message that men can be just like that if they try. 

Because the two men are friendly the audience are able to identify with them and this also makes the audience like the characters which is very important in our film. The use of gadgets in our film makes it appeal to a male audience as this is something that stereotypically males are seen to be very good with - or try to be good with. Gadgets give men something to talk about as they have that part of their social life in common (e.g they can talk about playstation games), this shows that these males in our thriller are just like kids, which shows just how similar they are to our audience and it paints a realistic view of men. It also gives the target audience something to like about the film as they may just watch films because of gadgets - it could also make the film stand out because after the film they could produce a game (using synergy) about stearing a submersible. And if they were to create this game, then again, it would appeal to a male audience and this would be another way that we have made our thriller really stand out to men. Men may be interested in the subject matter of our film of the two men being in danger. It is known that men like the prospect of danger because it puts them in a position that they can make all things better - and then they will become heroes (and woman love heroes, so they always aspire to want to impress the ladies). Although we didn't have much choice in our casting I am pleased with our casting as the characters are not threatening, and the fact that they seem down to earth makes the audience like them even more. Because our thriller doesn't paint a negative representation of men, this may be another reason that males would want to watch it -- they may be fed up of being represented as sitting back at home doing nothing whilst their wives are fussing around after them -- because they are seen as being in danger and doing something about it! The thriller is very much about science which may not be appealing to women as much as men. Typically science is considered as a males job. I looked on the website for all the Noble Prizes given for Economic Sciences and 1 out of 44 prizes were given to females.

This backs up the idea of us choosing males to be scientific, and it is believable to the audience. However, we didn’t want to show science in a geeky way, so that the people watching who may not be very sciency could also understand the storyline. This was also shown in how they looked, as stereotypically male scientists are seen as being ugly, but we wanted to show that not only ugly or smart looking people can understand technology. In our thriller we didn’t use young heartthrobs as actors, this would appeal to teenage girls and not so much 18+ males. One of the reasons we didn’t choose young heartthrobs is being most men don’t want to be seen as pretty, they want to be seen as being powerful and this is what we showed more than anything in our thriller.  Our plot was also about exploration and adventure which we thought would appeal to a male audience. The use of adventure makes males feel as though they are in some action film/game, which plays to the male fantasy of being heroes. The physical work in the thriller makes the males feel powerful, and this intelligence would appeal to women and this is one of the main reasons that men do things – because they want to impress women. 

 

During our lesson we had a feedback session with our class and another media group. We looked at eachothers thrillers and wrote down what we thought the plot was, what we thought the strengths about the thriller sequence were and what we would do differently to improve it. Here is what people thought of ours: 

           What do you think the basic plot of this thriller is:

1.    A submarine losing power and something bad is going to happen

2.    They got eaten by a monster under water

3.    Set in a submarine under water. All the electronics fail, crash?

4.    A submarine on an exhibition

5.    People being stranded in a submarine and there’s something there

6.    Submarine, underwater crisis

7.    Submarine crew finding something underwater and getting in trouble

8.    A submarine which at the end have a mechanical problem

9.    Underwater crisis

10.   Submarine- underwater crisis

11.   Two officer in a submarine discover a ship or monster

12.   Under water thriller

13.   Underwater thriller stranded by something underwater

14.   People in a submarine loosing connection with land and the story follows these lost people

15.   The story takes place in a submarine

16.   Explorers in a submarine suddenly see something

17.   That people in a submarine hits something and the power goes down

18.   Underwater, submarine, find something.

19.   Submarine getting stuck under water

20.   Submarine hitting by North Koreans or Chinese.

            What do you think are the key strengths of this thriller and why

1.     The way they made the blue lights look like it’s a submarine underwater

2.     You don’t see the monster so you have to imagine it which makes it more scary

3.     Shots taken of the seabed

4.     The shot outside the submarine set the location and mood really well

5.     The dark underwater setting and diegetic sounds

6.     The darkness of the shots and makes you want to know what it is

7.     The concept is really interesting

8.     Sound effects were very impressive and lighting created a very realistic feel

9.     The darkness

10.   Dark, slow moving, tense and sound is very effective

11.   The underwater shots they are unique and well done

12.   Shots underwater props were good

13.   The sound and suspense of the film

14.   Original, full of suspense, realistic

15.   Suspense and mystery created emphasized by non diegetic music

16.   The filming under water effect was really cool

17.   Opening shots, basic concept was cool, underwater shots

18.   The variety shots between the outside and inside submarine

19.   It builds up tension quite effectively

            How do you think this thriller could be made even more effective and why

1.     The part were they are ‘ What’s that’ this didn’t give you an idea on what is was

2.     It was quite hard to see the images on the screen

3.     Maybe too dark as times (couldn’t see some of it)

4.     Make it slightly slick when he sit down

5.     If they were able to see more under water

6.     Different sound, more effective building up

7.     Better presentation of a submarine

8.     Shot could have been a little clearer, although they did create an atmospheric feel

9.     More imagery on wear

10.   Not being able to see clear images

11.   Using actors which have more realistic emotion

12.   Made the atmosphere clearer shots

13.   Better dialogues, make the problem more obvious

14.   Maybe to see a glimpse of something at the end

15.   Made the shots of what it was just a little clearer 

16.   Maybe a better set, some of the water shots blurry

17.   Seen what is outside not really clear

18.   There could be a weird sound coming out of whatever is attacking the submarine, that would make it more scary 

      Looking at the feedback that we got it is clear that basically everybody understood what our thriller was about. This is probably one of the most important questions because if people don't understand it then it cannot be that thrilling. If the plot isn't clear then this means that the audience are concentrating on trying to understand what it is about. Whereas we wanted the audience to be with our characters and also scared for their safety. We wanted the audience to be captured immediately by our story-line so that they are straight away in the position with the two men. We had to make sure that it was easy to follow but also that there were pieces of information kept from the audience - this is because we wanted them to be at the same disadvantage as the characters. Its a very fine line between what information you give, you don't want to give too much information as this gets rid of the suspense, but you cannot give the audience too little information as they will not be gripped, or understand. A lot of people said in their feedback that they might have made it more clearer to the audience what the unknown creature was. However we thought that it was more thrilling that we didn't actually show what it was, because it made the audience in the position of the characters as they too were unaware as to what happened too.  16 out of 20 people mentioned that our thriller took place in a submarine. This means that 80% were convinced that it was a thriller inside a submarine, this is very important for our thriller as it is completely based around being inside a submarine. If the audience didn't get this then this would be a definite problem. The 20% that didn't write down the word submarine still said that it was based underwater so maybe they didn't feel that they needed to write that it was based in a submarine or it could be possible that they just didn't get that it was in a submarine. However because 80% did get that it was based in a submarine I am confident enough to say that this was understood, so our plot was clear.



Alot of people said that the strengths of our thriller was the darkness of the shots as this created suspense. This was an aspect we really wanted to capture well as we wanted the audience to see enough so that they were guessing, but not too much so that it was obvious. It made the audience in the position of the two men as they too were guessing what the mystery thing was. It was a technique that we used to make sure that the audience were gripped. A lot of people said that our concept was 'cool' and unique. This is one of the reasons we chose to film a submersible because it was original and there were many interesting things that we could do - but the trouble was making it realistic. I am pleased to see that one person mentioned that it was realistic, this is very important because any piece of film has to be believable for it to be affective. The shots of the seabed were mentioned as a strength, which is good because this was one part of the thriller that we really wanted to get right as it had to look like what the two men could see underwater.



The reasons that people said about how they would improve it are very reasonable. People commented on how some of the shots are too dark, however we wanted the shots to be like this because it made it more scary as there was really noway of seeing what was out there. This also enforced the idea of it being extremely claustrophobic. Unfortunately the actor that we wanted to use (who is a drama teacher, so would be able to act was unwell on the day, so we didn't have much choice because of the short notice.

TASK 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our thriller fits into the subgenre of supernatural, and action. This is the same subgenre to a thriller film that I found called Sanctrum, which is an underwater thriller. I think the target audience for our thriller will be males, because of the two main characters being men they will be able to relate to the characters. Also women are usually more into the romantic films, instead of jumpy thrillers. The age range I think our thriller is aimed for is 15-24 year olds, due to the modern technology used and the technical aspects of the film.

When we did our questionaire before shooting our thriller we found that our taget audience wold be males and females over 18. This is because females under the age of 18 voted that Thriller was their least favourite genre of film, so this would not be an area we would like to target because the figures would not be successful. Many films for females under the age of 18 are chick-flicks, rom-coms, each of these have in the cast good looking males who would be teenage heartthrobs, romance and predictable storylines. All of which we have no included into our thriller because we know that this target adience would not enjoy our film as much as others. We wanted our thriller to be filled with heroes, gadgets and danger.

Other thrillers which have the same target audience as ours include Inception and The Bourne Supremacy. The Bourne Supremacy is an action thriller (hich is a diferent subgenre to ours), but it has the same target audience as us because of firstly, the characters - being a man who is similar to them who acts as a hero - this gives men power as they believe they could be just like him and how off to all of the ladies. Also because there are many gadgets in the film, which are something men like because it gives them something to do, and it makes a lot of men have things in common with other men. It is said that he who has the most toys wins. Men always want to have the best new gadget so that they can become the best at it then move on to the next gadget. Or they may watch these films because of the action scenes, which are fast - with cars (which men love) and this gets energy pumping through their bodies. These type of films paint men in good ways as it shows that they are put in dangerous positions yet they strieve to succeed.

       

                                                      

To absolutely confirm who are target audience are I did some additional research on IMDB to see the ratings for the Bourne Ultimatum were from male and females.

       

I found that a lot more men rated the film than females. 176,258 men compared to females which were 22,216, nearly a ratio of 9:1. This may be because there are more male users of IMDB, but the diefference is so large that this seems to confirm that the audience for this type of film is male-skewed.

The ratings from males and females were very close together so it shows that maybe it does appeal to both sexes. However because of the fact that it does seem to be rated slightly higher by younger audiences it helps to confirm that the target audience for our film probably is, as first suggested male aged 15-24.

TASK 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The institution that I would choose for our thriller would be Vertigo Films. The reasons being is that Vertigo Films is a British film company, and with our thriller being set in Britain with British actors I think it would fit in well with this company. Vertigo Films is not a very big company therefore with the actors not being well-known it wouldn’t be such a big deal because they have many ‘new talent’ in their films. Vertigo distributes a lot of boy-ish films and I think that our thriller would fall into this category well.  When thinking about institutions at first I thought maybe Lionsgate would be good, however our film isn’t for a mainstream audience as the market we are targeting is quite narrow and it is not facing universal problems, romance, comedy etc. Also because our cast are not well known actors I think this may be too bigger company to take our thriller onboard. ‘Outcast’ is a thriller distributed by Vertigo Films, it is supernatural film which is the same as our thriller therefore there are similarities in both of these films which shows that Vertigo Films may be the distributor for our film. Vertigo Films do low budget films, and this would be the same with our thriller as we would not have the money to splash out, this would also be a quality that Vertigo Films would like about our film is that it is going to be done on a low budget. The marketing Vertigo Films use include posters, trailers, adverts on social networking sites, playstations and more. This gives us a variety of different mediums. The target audience that Vertigo Films go for in some of their films are men, and this is the same target audience for ours so this would make it easy for them to distribute our film as they know how to make money for this particular audience which is the same as ours. Bronson is just one example of one of their films targetted towards men, although it is in a different sub genre the fact that the target audience is the same creates a comparison and similarity.