Red Marks Final

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

In progression from our  preliminary task to our final product I feel that in terms of organisation, planning and editing skills we have improved a lot.

Organisation was improved from our preliminary task to the full product. This was because storyboarding was used more effectively therefore this enabled us organise our time and more importantly, arrange the structure of the product such as what shots and re-shoots were needed.

Time Management was more prompt in the making of our final product as our group had regular meetings and contact. This allowed us to observe the tasks which were completed and still needed to be finished, allowing us to manage and finish our product on time.

Editing skills were improved as we had more time to make our final product and structure our opening efficiently so there were less continuity issues as seen in our preliminary.

Communication skills were developed as our group contacted each other when planning to film or meet up for discussions which has benefitted the outcome of our final product as tasks set for each individual or as a group were met.

Amani Choudhury - Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From the process of constructing this product, an important aspect that I have learnt to use is After Effects CS3. This was the software I used to create the opening credits. However, at first it was difficult to use the software but by watching YouTube tutorials and through trial and error, I grasped the concept and eventually made the titles.










Blogger was mainly used in the process of making this product as I had to post regularly regarding updates of pre-production and post production. Blogger was useful as I could keep track of previous posts as well as the accessibility to our blog either through a phone or computer. However, it was hard to post efficiently because coming up to the production of our opening, other factors such as filming was prioritised.




In terms of hardware, the camcorders and Apple iMacs were essential in the making of our product as we learned how to film precisely and edit efficiently for our media product to look of a professional standard.


 

Amani Choudhury - Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

 As the target audience were aged 15-19 from our audience feedback, we decided to see what rating it could be by the BBFC and concluded that a 15 would be appropriate in terms of our storyline and content.
















The school setting one element which could address our target audience as their age of 15-19 indicates that they are still in education as well as having the experience meaning that they can identify with the character.

 

 

 

 

 

Another factor is that the main character is a female. This subversion of a typical serial killer allows us to attract our audience because they would be interested in how a role of a teenager and a killer correlate. Also by the audience preferring a independent film, this challenges the generic conventions so this allows us to use this to an advantage by using an uncommon character.





The shots of close ups of the blood and the tracking shots of the empty corridors allow us to grab the attention of our audience as these shots allow the audience to be drawn in as well as this highlights the apprehension and mood of the opening.
 

 

 

Amani Choudhury - Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

We constructed two forms of questionnaires; one on Survey Monkey and another was Video questionnaire:





The questionnaire was created enabling us to see what our audience preferred as well as their opinion on what should be included in an thriller opening. Open-ended questions were also produced in the questionnaire as the respondent could give their views on what they felt should be in a thriller. Close-ended questions were also available so we as a group could see what favoured by the majority.

The results indicated what our target audience generally preferred which was a psychological thriller but also their opinions on what is the most important aspect to a film. From these findings we were able to make clear decisions on what our opening should include in order  to appeal towards our audience.

Amani Choudhury - Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our media product can relate to a more independent audience as our opening consists of one central character which shows that she is the lead role and the plot revolves around her. This can attract an independent label to distribute our product as it is very niche because it is mainly set and based in a school environment, which can imply narrowing our audience to only students. Also from our audience research the feedback given allowed us to see what our potential target audience preferred which was an independent film.

 Momentum Pictures is suitable for distributing our media product as it is independent and very successful within the UK with films such as The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo. As this institution is independent but distributes films that can be for both mainstream and independent audiences, this is appropriate for our media product as ours has some mainstream elements one being a serial killer storyline.

Amani Choudhury - Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our opening is set in a school so teenagers are mainly represented but as our protagonist is also a serial killer as well this can show the secretiveness of teenagers that are usually personified throughout many media forms. As we have a typical storyline of a teenager with a 'hidden identity' this can appeal to a mainstream audience however with our characters and location being very minimal this can be more of an independent film.

Teenagers are represented in our opening but by the character being in 'SATURDAY DETENTION' this gives insight to the character's background as she is shown as a bad student. The importance of the character being in detention as well as covering up her own murder shows teenagers in a negative light by being secretive, violent and dismaying rules.

Females are shown in our media product by our main protagonist. The character portrays the rebellious side of females as they are generically presented as passive and innocent. Our subversion of a serial killer typically being a male shows that females have a sense of identity too by wanting to gain their independence and authority by 'getting even' with their enemies. This is also shown in Revenge (a thriller genre drama).


 Serial Killers are presented in our opening as our central character is a serial killer but instead of presenting our serial killer in a conventional way who is male and typically isolated from society, we challenged this stereotype type by making a school girl the killer. This representation of a serial killer aims to shock our audience as she is seen to lead a normal teenage life e.g. going to school but her true intentions are shown in the flashbacks of her murder (shown above).

Amani Choudhury - Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The opening of our thriller includes many conventional features and by our product research we have chosen specific aspects and have resembled this in our opening.

There are particular ways in which we have used conventions from real media products such as:

Lighting:

The use of dark lighting at the beginning of our opening suggests that the atmosphere of the school is quite nerving thus creating enigma amongst the audience. By presenting the school through low key lighting shows that there are dark and mysterious elements to a 'ordinary' school setting. This is also seen in the opening of Se7en as the antagonist is seen to be taking part in immoral activities however, their face is not revealed. This creates ambiguity as the audience are unaware of the character's identity as the lighting creates a sense of suspense because the audience are not fully informed of the antagonist but only of his corrupt behaviour. In our opening the central character is revealed and is shown towards the audience that she has committed a murder, however the use of natural bright lighting in the bathroom scene shows that she is 'covering' up her true self as we wanted the bright lighting to indicate her hiding her true self and putting on a facade of a 'normal' school girl. This is aslo shown in American Psycho as the main character is seen doing their morning routine however the voice over indicates that there is a mysterious and abnormal element to them.




Plot/Storyline:

The storyline of our opening is conventional as it is about a school girl with a 'split identity'. This is shown in many other films such as Jennifer's Body as a hidden aspect of a regular school girl seems to create interest amongst the audience.















Title and Typography:

The title of our opening has a double meaning which links to where the opening is set. 'Red Marks' can be associated with school and being a student as 'Marks' can refer to grades and tests however the red can be symbolic in terms of the storyline because the central character is a murderer so 'Red' therefore implicates blood.


The typography of our title is bold and has an eroded effect which is what we aimed for because it links to the thriller genre. My titles research post on the 'Art of the Title' video shows how the fonts and the typography link to the film's genre and plot so this helped us decided what fonts to choose from and what it suggests about the film. Our group used dafont.com to see what types of fonts we could use for our credits and titles and what were available and how it can be implemented in our opening. We decided to go for an eroded effect as the typography links with blood by the smears in the letters. The superimposition of the title over a clip of the drain highlights the use of blood because it is white font over a red background so this empathises the title and stands out against the blood. The contrast between red and white is used in many real media products such as 'Dexter' and 'Jennifer's Body' (shown above) as the white can symbolise purity of the character because of their age but the red also suggests a dark secretive side to them as she is also a killer.

 

 

Fun Hong- 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 the preliminary task, I feel we have improved a lot during the process of making our final product.

Fun Hong- Evaluation: Question 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Fun Hong-Evaluation: Question 5. How did you attract/address your audience?

After distributing our questionnaires and collecting the results, the majority of whom we had asked were in the bracket of 16-20 years old. This would therefore mean the certificate for our film would be a 15. According to BBFC  a 15 can include:

BBFC classifies a 15 as being able to include:

• strong violence
• frequent strong language (eg 'f***').
• portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discriminatory language or behaviour
• drug taking

So, in order for us to make sure that we fulfil the terms of a 15, we tried to minimise anything that will be unsuitable for our target audience. Therefore, we had included the following to make our thriller opening appealing to our audiences:

• Unconventional protagonist: The protagonist of Red Marks subverts the mainstream idea of the protagonist being a male character. We mainly subverted this idea because our target audience were females, therefore, in order to appeal to our target audience, we had decided to make the protagonist a female. 

• Variety of shots: During the opening sequence, we had used a whole range of shots, including location shots, close ups, long shots, tracking, panning etc. This emphasises us being an independent institution because following mainstream conventions, they usually stick to a couple during their opening sequences. 

• Psychological thriller: Reflecting on asking our audience's preference for which sub-genre they thought would be most interesting with a thriller, the majority of people preferred psychological thrillers. In order to portray to depict the psychological element of this thriller, we decided to use parallel editing in order to discomfort and confuse our audience. 

Fun Hong- Evaluation: Question 4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Creating the questionnaire
By creating a questionnaire, it enabled us to draw ideas in order to satisfy our target audience of who we asked. Overall, the questionnaire has helped us plan out and make the final media product and see how we can challenge or develop conventions from thrillers. The questionnaire included questions such as what were their favourite thriller movies, what conventions they recognise in thrillers. We had also put different films into the questionnaire and had asked people which they thought were thrillers. Surprisingly, most people were not able to categorise which of the following films were thrillers, which could be the reason of them not thinking about whether it was a thriller or not if they had seen it.  These questions had helped us especially to plan our media product, because we wanted to see whether we can draw out the thriller aspect of our opening sequence a bit more, and to see whether our target audience would be able to identify Red Marks as a thriller.

Results:

From this pie chart, the majority of peoples favourite sub-genre was psychological. This enabled our ideas to become more creative, as psychological thrillers could be experimented in many ways. In Red Marks, the psychological aspect is the whole journey where Eleanor Park walks towards the toilets and the whole flash backs she has about the murder she had committed. This would therefore mean that the audience would be intrigued in watching a psychologically unstable protagonist brutally victimising other students.

What institution our audience preferred 

The vast majority of our audience preferred our media product to be independent. This would benefit us because it would allow us to bring out more creativity, as we could identify conventions from mainstream films, and challenge/develop them. Overall, this had allowed us more freedom, because we were draw out ideas and not having the fear of it not being classified as a mainstream.

From the results of our questionnaire and our final cut, our audience for Red Marks would be:

Gender: Females- as our protagonist is a female character, which subverts the conventions of thrillers who are mainly men.

Age: 16-18 Year Old

Occupation: Students- as it is based in a school, students are more likely to be interested in watching Red Marks

Examples of how we've applied our results into our opening sequence:

The use of parallel editing fulfils the audience's need of it being a psychological thriller because its as though they are going through the journey with the protagonist, which is used in the opening of Psycho. In the parallel editing used whilst Eleanor is walking, the constant use of flash backs could also confuse the audience, which fits in with the independent conventions of independent institutions allowing their viewers to be confused, so that ask themselves questions, and want to watch on in order to get resolutions for their questions further on into the film.

Fun Hong- Evaluation: Question 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

From our audience research, most of the people we asked preferred our media product to be independent, therefore I think it will be best if the media institution that will distribute our product is independent institution.
From aspects of our film, we have mostly challenged conventions from mainstream, such as our lead female protagonist being a female. However, a female lead is also used in Wanted and in Kill Bill.

We would also fit into the independent industry because we have a small cast, an unconventional location (as most of the thrillers take place at someone's home or somewhere isolated), and we used a pan of the drain(shown on the right) to emphasise the flow of the blood running through it. The blood running through the drain could also be symbolic of how Eleanor murders her victims, as the blood is rinsing out of their body after she has killed them.

I think Summit Entertainment would be a good institution to distribute Red Marks. This is mainly because evn though they are an independent institution, they are quite successful in distributing films. For example, they were successful with Twilight Series and in 2009, they released Knowing  which earned them over $100 billion worldwide. Knowing this, it will benefit us if they might distribute our media product because they are able to distribute successful films, which would help Red Marks go towards a wider audience.

Fun Hong- Evaluation: Question 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Fun Hong- Evaluations: Question 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

1.Meaning behind the title:

Title of the film

We had decided to name our thriller Red Marks in order to draw the links between of how the protagonist kills and the relevance of it being set in the school. The use of Red Marks is punning against the red marks in which the protagonist kills, and red marks which are given to students at school who behave anti-socially. 

The idea of the blood running whilst the viewing of the title of our thriller was taken from Dark City , where during the showing of their production company, they had swirls moving at the background. In this sequence of the production company, we later see that the murder consists of carving that same pattern on the protagonists victims. This has been used for the title of our film instead, because as the water mixes with the blood, its expresses the protagonists psychological thoughts being "diluted" which causes her to murder in her school and let the blood run (as shown in the moving image behind the title).

We have developed on the white-on-red title from the title of Dexter, which is switched around into red-on-white. The use of white-on-red for our title stands out, because its on a darker colour on a white surface (sink drain). I thought this would be quite good, because instead of doing another shade of red, the white is able to draw attention to our audience a lot more than the other shades of red.

2. Setting/Location

Corridor Shots

As the group decided that the murderous crimes the protagonist gets up to are based in school, we decided to include corridor shots in order to introduce the setting. This is also used at the beginning of The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. We have used conventions from other thrillers, such as lighting. Lighting plays a key part in trying to introduce a mysterious or unnerving atmosphere. This is also used in the introduction of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, which makes the audience feel discomforted. The discomforted atmosphere is created through the use of panning around the house, which comes with eerie and deceiving music. We are also shown an empty room with a cradle placed right in the middle, which makes the audience feel at edge, because it makes us, as a audience, link the cradle directly to the title. We have used this idea with the tracking shots of the corridors, which can also make the audience link these to the title Red Marks, as red marks are associated with misbehaved students and blood. 

Saturday Detention- where protagonist is kept behind

3. Plot/Characters
It was decided to base our plot on the fact that misbehaved students in this school are being kept in school on a Saturday evening for "Saturday Detention". This would give Eleanor an advantage into committing her plot to her victims. This is conventional because the protagonist somehow tries to blend in with the crowd in order to hide their true identity, which in this case she tries to misbehave in order to get dragged into detention, leading her to commit the murders towards her victims.  

Introduction to the protagonist
The way the protagonist is introduced is conventional of the genre of thrillers. For example, in Dexter, we see his reflection blurred(shown on the left), we could reflect the fact that he moonlights his murderous side to others. We have developed this convention, as we decided to finally reveal the protagonists face. This was purposed in order to represent her lack of guilt of the murder she did. This enables us to reveal her cold-blooded side, which is not conventional in thrillers, because it continually creates a sense of ambiguity by not revealing who the protagonist really is.

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

Since our preliminary task, I feel that we have improved in a large amount of ways:

Time management: I feel that instead of wasting time planning what to do, like we did in our preliminary task, we made sure that we actually filmed/researched etc. when we were supposed to. This allowed us to do a lot of retakes during the filming of our actual opening because during the preliminary we ran out of time because of our intense planning of the film idea.

Communication: I feel that we communicated a lot better during the filming of our final product. This could be due to the fact that we had more time to film what we needed to and so we weren't under such a high amount of pressure. We also made sure to be more articulate when expressing our ideas which meant that everyone had a lot of input whilst filming the opening to our thriller. Our teamwork improved rapidly as we spent less time bickering and more time shooting the opening which was a problem during the preliminary.

Teamwork: Along with improving our communication, I believe that our group has become more strategic and more efficient in the creation of our final task. During our preliminary, we tended to work individually, and although this allowed us to think of various different ideas, our team found it hard to collaborate because we were all very strong minded. However, when it came to the production of the final product, our team managed to become more willing to compromise, which made the product become strong in all aspects.

Planning: We decided to limit ourselves to a specific amount of time to draw up our storyboards. This is because during our preliminary task, our team spent so much time trying to make the plot the most interesting it could be, we limited ourselves to a very short period of time to film and edit the preliminary task. Timing ourselves helped us vastly in the editing process as we came across a few errors which we didn't we would have and the extra time helped us remove those problems.

Shot composition: I think that we improved majorly when paying attention to the shot composition. In our final piece we made sure to pay attention to every detail.

As you can clearly see here, not only is this shot off-centre, you can also see the tripod and someone behind it in the reflection of the window. You cannot see our actress walking, which made the shot completely useless.

In comparison, the bathroom shot from our final piece is not off-centre and does not shot the camera in the mirrors - which is a common mistake made even by professionals. This shows that we clearly took the advice given to us as we made sure to pay attention to all of the details.This was extremely important to us because the independent audience was more likely to notice such errors as they would have concentrated symbolism and picked up on any out-of-place mise-en-scene.





Editing: Seeing as we had more time to edit, we made sure that we had no jump cuts in our final product, such as this one from our preliminary task:

Overall, I think that editing is something that we did well in both in the preliminary task as well as the final opening - the lack of suitable footage meant that the jump cut existed. Seeing as I was in charge of editing in my group I made the editing as precise as I could, which I think reflected on the hard work we did as a group. I think that I improved so much on the editing on iMovie that I felt confident enough to edit an extremely short clip successfully. 

Patrycja Przewlocka - Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Patrycja Przewlocka - Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

After finding out about the main age of the target audience, I went on the BBFC website in order to find out about a suitable rating which we could adapt to the film. I decided to that a 15+ film would attract the most of our audience, whilst also giving us some creative freedom and not limiting us. Here's what the BBFC said about this particular rating:

We made sure not to include anything which would be deemed 'unsuitable' for this rating, therefore we decided to limit the amount of blood in our opening, whilst still making the film tense ans suspenseful. 

In order to make our thriller appealing, we decided to:

• Create a psychological thriller: taking the questionnaire in to account, we decided to deceive and confuse the viewer by including the parallel timeline of the serial killer
• 'Hint' at strong violence: I thought that making the viewer think would be more satisfying to the independent film fans instead of presenting the whole plot on the screen.
• Locate the film in a familiar surrounding to the target audience: I feel that by making the thriller in a detention, the target audience would be able to identify with some of the characters in the film, attracting them to it.
• Use an unconventional protagonist: in order to make the independent audience feel attracted to the film, I made the female protagonist a contrasting image to the female stereotype. I feel that this would have shocked the market and therefore attracted them to the film.
• Variation of shots: In order to make the film appeal to both mainstream and independent audiences, we used a variety of camera shots and lengths. Unlike many thrillers, we decided to make the opening sequence more establishing - giving the audience something to root for from the very beginning of the film. Furthermore, if we only user a limited amount of types of shots, I feel that we would make the film appeal unsuspenceful, defeating the purpose of a thriller.
• Create a gritty environment: by making the most important scene of our film appeal to fans of thrillers, we decided to film it in the bathrooms. This is because it looks gritty and suspicious which we thought would be effective for making our audience cringe as they saw the blood pour down the drain in a paint-chipping, grey bathroom.
  

Patrycja Przewlocka - Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Creating the questionnaire:

In order to find out about our target audience, we decided to create questionnaires, as well as interview random members of our school community. We decided to include questions which would inform us of the individual's demographics and psychographics,so that we could make the most appealing film opening possible. The majority of the questions we asked were open as I felt that giving choices would limit the individual and therefore limit us with the findings. We included questions such as the last two films seen in the cinema, or the individual's favourite film with reasoning, in order to get to know them and hopefully try to find a way in which the information matches, so that we can make our film appealing. Nonetheless, we included some closed questions in order to make sure that the basic information about the individual could give us a rough idea of who the target audience was. This included questions like the most favoured genre of thrillers so that I would know what themes would be the most appropriate in our film.

Distributing the questionnaire:

We decided to distribute the questionnaires mostly in our school community, so that we could perform follow-up questions with the most ease. We also distributed some questionnaires outside of school in order to get the widest results possible. However, I feel that this has limited us because the results which we received were very similar. I think that using an online survey - we used Survey Monkey - would have proven to be the most beneficial, however, given the few replies which we received, it didn't help us in deciding. 

Results of the questionnaire:

Your typical 'indie friends' - our audience

From our research, we have gathered that the majority of our audience would be teenage girls. In order to appeal to our audience, we have decided to make our protagonist a female herself - this would mean that the audience would have someone to identify with. Surprisingly, the audience chose independent films on a majority, which gave us opportunities to challenge conventions of thrillers which we found exciting. Furthermore, the favourite sub-genre of thrillers was chosen to be psychological, which was beneficial to us as it meant that our group had a wide ark which we could draw ideas from, instead of being limited to a central theme such as war, gangs etc.

We also decided to conduct some interviews for our audience research; although it wasn't very useful, we managed to get some inspiration from the audience's responses.

Patrycja Przewlocka - Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

From our audience research, we have gathered that the majority of our audience prefers independent films. Therefore we decided that an independent production and distribution company would suit our film the best. However seeing as our film tackles a mainstream problem of a serial killer instead of a niche independent problem, as well as representing teenagers, we thought that a mainstream subsidiary would be the most appropriate. 

I think that Summit Entertainment would be the most successful production company to deliver our film. It is a part of LIONSGATE, one of the leading production companies, which would be beneficial as it would deliver the film to a wide audience. However the majority of the films produced by Summit are independent. The composition of our film feels independent due to the small cast an unusual setting and some distinguished shots (such as the low shot of the blood drain), which is why we thought this would be a suitable company. Furthermore, things such as no cast 'selling-point' would attract the independent audience.

I thought that Momentum Pictures would be the most suitable distributor for our film as it is one of the leading independent distributors in the UK, and has distributed many thrillers such as The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo. This would be an appropriate distribution company, because whilst it's independent, it is the most successful company, which should attract both independent and mainstream audiences.

Patrycja Przewlocka - Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our protagonist was a school a student - this was a character we thought the audience could identify quickly.  Seeing as we wanted to appeal to both the independent and the mainstream audiences, we wanted to create a main character which could be stereotypical, yet with a surprising twist. 

Serial Killers:

Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer vs. Our Unknown Serial Killer

We decided to completely challenge and confuse the stereotype of a serial killer in our film. We felt that this would appeal to our independent audience more, whilst also shocking the mainstream. In our film we decided to NOT represent them as old, creepy men, like those in older thrillers such as Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal, but we wanted our serial killer to be a young aryan girl. This complete contrast would not only shock, but add irony to the film, which was our main goal. Additionally, the serial killer in our product is the protagonist, which further challenges the stereotype as serial killers are usually the villains.

Students/teenagers:

Kidulthood shows a conventional representation of teens

We followed the typical stereotypes of detention students: constantly bored, and angry, which adds to the image they already have in the media. We decided to base the characters of our thriller on The Breakfast Club as although it is an older film (1985), it represents teenagers in a similar way to more modern films like the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Our detention class is nearly empty, putting the characters in the position of outcasts, which is a typical media image of teens. We took the idea of 'detention=bad' to the extreme, as we made one of the detention students become a serial killer. We also used the mise-en-scene of the empty classroom, by making it messy in order to show the common idea that teenagers are messy themselves. By positioning the teens sparsely around the classroom, we reinforced the idea of cliques, further enforcing the typical media view of teenagers. However, after a long consideration, I feel that we should have presented the teens in a more positive way; they are our target audience after all. 

Women

Taken

Conventionally in thrillers, the main cast is almost always male. Our group decided to challenge this idea, and have the protagonist be a female. However, we also went against the stereotypical image of a woman; in films such as Taken, the women are shown to be helpless and very weak. Visually, women in films also always appear to have long hair, soft features and wear light colours in order to make them appear innocent. However, our protagonist challenges all of those ideas. First of all, she is the protagonist of the thriller. A similar idea has only been explored in a handful of films such as Kill Bill, or Wanted. This was in order to surprise the audience as we hoped that they would not expect a woman to be a serial killer. The most important aspect of challenging the female stereotype was the appearance of our own. First of all, instead of being blonde and ditzy, our Serial Killer has a very short pixie cut, wears no make up and has definite features. Furthermore, she wears dark colours with bold items of clothing, such as a biker jacket and Doc Martens. This would further challenge the stereotype of a female in the clip, which we hoped would appeal to our audience.

interesting

Patrycja Przewlocka - Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We decided to explore the conventions in thrillers and adapt them in our opening in the following ways:

1.The Title (location, typography and meaning) of the film:

We decided to call our film Red Marks in order to link the title to the location of the film - a school. The title suggests that death or injury will be present (red is associated with blood) whilst also being punning as the red marks could be associated with schoolwork, as well as the idea of a serial killer or a hitman. 

We used superimposition in our opening title in order to make it follow the conventions of a thriller, as we found many different 

Dexter is one of Showtime's most
successful products.

films such as Memento to use a similar technique in order to link to the themes associated with the film. We decided to use a custom font because after researching the impact of fonts, we found that we wanted ours to draw attention away from the simple close up that we used. In order to find a suitable font, we used dafont.com as we found there to be a lot of interesting fonts which we could use. The white colour would contrast against the red blood in the drain - an effect used in other thriller products such as Dexter, in order to show the importance of the blood being spilt.

2. The Setting/Location:

The majority of our thriller took place in empty school corridors, whilst the overall setting was a school. 

This allowed ease of access for us as we were able to limit the amount of light to a minimum which is conventional of thrillers such as Goodfellas or Shutter Island as it adds a sense of mystery. On the other hand, we used a bathroom with very bright artificial lighting in order to make the scene feel clinical, similar to American Psycho in order to make the scene creepy and uncomfortable. 

3. The Plot and characters:

This just indicates trouble...

Conventionally, we decided that an abandoned school would work well with our film. The idea of  isolation during the detention is very common in thrillers as it gives a sense of no escape and no help. We also limited the amount of characters which are seen in the opening sequence, giving a sense of closure, going along with the conventions. Our protagonist's face was  introduced near the end of the opening, adding to the sense of enigma, similar to The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. However, in order to contrast the conventional look of a serial killer, we decided to make ours a blonde female (more about that in this post). Our protagonist was introduced in a back shot, which is seen in other thrillers such as Donnie Darko - this is so that the sense of enigma is introduced from the very beginning of the film in order to keep the audience engaged. One of the most important characters in our thriller is the secret informer who messages the protagonist at the end of our opening. The idea of secrecy and anonymous is generic of thrillers, such as the Bourne series as it adds to the enigma of the dynamics of the plot. 

4. Camerawork, editing and sound:

Our group followed the conventions of a thriller in the technical aspect of the opening. Firstly, we used a lot of low tracking shots during the opening in order to make the school appear intimidating and mysterious. We also used a lot of closeups in our shots to limit what the audience can see, whilst also making them see detail which is crucial to the story, similar to Se7en. 


We used parallel editing throughout our opening, similar to The Silence of the Lambs, in order to create tension and to confuse the audience. This is rather conventional of thrillers - however we decided to use it in order to show two different time periods, rather than two different scenes. We thought that this would have more of an impact rather than a simple flashback, however I believe that we could've improved the composition of the shots to make them appear even more shocking. 

We also decided to make our soundtrack conventional of thrillers. During the beginning sequence, our soundtrack is minimal - the echoic ringing adds to the empty atmosphere of the corridors, whilst also creating a sense of enigma. However, during the 2nd corridor scene (with our protagonist) the music builds up to a crescendo - the piano creates a theme of grandeur, creating tension in the scene as the loud sound contradicts the calm mannerism of the blonde character. This is conventional of thrillers, however instead of using string instruments like violins, we decided to use the piano as we thought it would have more of an impact.

Grace Haybyrne: Evaluation - Question 7

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

Our prelim task was very basic in terms of the research, planning and production skills required. We needed to shoot a conversation that included continuity editing and a shot reverse shot sequence.



We edited on iMovie

We struggled a little learning to use the new hardware (iMacs, MiniDv Cameras as well as tripods and tracks) and software (iMovie 11 HD. We also had to get to grips with things like the 360 rule match on action. However the piece was quite simple and easy to manage, in terms of group work etc as well as the practical aspects of the task.

For our main task we needed a lot more detailed work on:

Research and planning 

Product research for our opening.

For our final product we had to carry out different types of product research including:

soundtrack: we felt that this was really important as it sets the mood of the whole piece. 

lighting (in order to create different atmospheres - we did not need to consider this in our prelim) 

titles (appropriate to our opening)

different thriller films (to give us some interesting ideas that we can include in our own opening.) We didn't have to think about genres and sub genres in our prelim.

production: because we needed to include many more techniques we encountered many more problems, for example, our tracking shots in the corridors were very technical and required many reshoots. We also had continuity issues, for example, ensuring that  Mr Gibbs, who played a teacher, dressed the same on different days.

post production: Although it seemed difficult at the time, the prelim was a lot less complicated than the final product. We had many different edits to consider as well as transitions to put in. The combination of the moving images and the sound - both diagetic and non-diagetic was very tricky but very important to get right. We also had to learn all the features from creating events to editing via Clip Adjustments as well as adjusting the volume levels and lighting contrasts in a fine way.

Overall, the journey from the prelim to the final product was very demanding but enjoyable too.