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.