A thriller film is one which has the audience “on the edge of their seats”, anticipating the next scene with both excitement and tension. A real thriller creates a lot of tension through music, through the screenplay and through the characters actions. The tension usually arises when the main character or at least one character is placed in a menacing situation, a mystery, or a trap from which escaping seems impossible or dangerous. Life may be threatened, or an unknown element is striking fear in the character creating a sense of unease and nervousness. This is usually because the principal character is unsuspectingly or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation.
In the film “Unknown”, for example, which is an action thriller, the main character played by Liam Neeson is knocked unconscious, only to find that his identity has been stolen when he wakes up. His wife and family do not know who he is, and there is another person pretending to be him. He is obviously in danger, as there is something going on that he does not know about – or as the title of the film appropriately puts it, “Unknown”.
Our opening portrays a character who sees himself dead on the floor, while conciously being alive and well as normal. This, almost “double-vision” suggests that the person may have been cloned. Our film, like “Unknown” uses the actions in the film to directly influence the title, as we called it “Simultaneous Perception”.
The opening to our film creates tension both through the steady, eerie drumbeat and tone throughout, as well as the shock for the antagonist when he finds his own body, dead behind a tree. This immediately puts the main character into danger, and, because this is such an unusual and unlikely situation, it has the audience anticipating what will happen next, as they sit, eager to discover how this has occurred and why it has occurred.
Another convention of a thriller is that the heroes in most thrillers are frequently ordinary citizens unaccustomed to danger. For example, “Color of Night”, a 1994 mystery thriller starring Bruce Willis, portrays a psychoanalyst as the main character who gets involved in the action as he tries to discover the problems with all of his patients only to discover something a lot worse than he was expecting.
Our film does not involve a psychoanalyst, but similarly does portray an average citizen who is simply revising in a local park when the action strikes. The fact that there is mystery in our thriller is also another convention, but as the opening to the film relies so heavily on this factor, it could be seen that our film is a mystery thriller like “Color of Night” or a crime thriller.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The main character in our opening is a teenage boy of 16 who is Caucasian and presumed middle class due to the nice, but casual clothes that he is wearing. Gender is not necessarily represented stereotypically, as there is no woman in the film to compare the treatment with. The fact that there is a young man in the film may attract people of this age to come and watch the film - as the ages between 15- 24 is our main target audience.
If anything, the male stereotype of being the dominant force is not used, and instead, the male who is revising for an exam is put into danger and is in a bad position himself, probably in need of rescuing or help. If the film were being stereotypical, then there would be a woman in immediate danger, with a strong, capable male introduced to save her.
Older people are not represented as much as the younger, as there are only a few people walking in the background. This is just part of the mise en scene of an average park, with people walking their dogs or pushing their baby children around. These older people can be seen in the distance, and are not the main focus.
The main character, David, is reading from a religious studies book, which suggests that this person is religious. It may however also suggest that the nature of the character is curious, and interested in different cultures to their own. The religion of the character in the opening is not explicitly given, as this is a thriller, and we did not want to give too much away in the first scene.
Again, this links with our target audience, as we are aiming our film at the younger generation, interested in action, adventure, new ideas, new concepts, and a fresh, young character whom the audience can relate to.
Older people are not represented as much as the younger, as there are only a few people walking in the background. This is just part of the mise en scene of an average park, with people walking their dogs or pushing their baby children around. These older people can be seen in the distance, and are not the main focus.
The main character, David, is reading from a religious studies book, which suggests that this person is religious. It may however also suggest that the nature of the character is curious, and interested in different cultures to their own. The religion of the character in the opening is not explicitly given, as this is a thriller, and we did not want to give too much away in the first scene.
Again, this links with our target audience, as we are aiming our film at the younger generation, interested in action, adventure, new ideas, new concepts, and a fresh, young character whom the audience can relate to.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our film is one which could, if invested in by a big production company like Universal could become a blockbuster thriller. It is deiiferent, yet holds the typical conventions of a thriller. Universal have produced many thrillers including the recent political thriller Green Zone which stars Matt Damon as well as the action-thriller film, Repo Men which stars Jude Law.
I think a media institution like Warner brother pictures would produce the film because they make tense thrillers like the Batman series and Red riding hood which is being released theatrically in the cinemas soon and I think Warner brother’s would be the right distributer for are film Simultaneous Perception which is a dark tense thriller and Simultaneous Perception is the type of genre of film in which Warner brother’s distributes.
Simultaneous Perception will have a theatrical release rather then being a Tv movie because the way we produced Simultaneous Perception we produced for it to be a film rather then Simultaneous Perception to be a three part series.
Simultaneous Perception is a mainstream film rather then a art house film because of the conventions of Simultaneous perception which fits in with the convention of a traditional thriller for instance convention of a thriller that are shown in Simultaneous perception: a dead body,a crime at the core of the story and the protagonist questions his own identity after seeing his own body.
Simultaneous Perception will not be released as an internet release because for one reason Simultaneous Perception is a mainstream film so it will appeal to a wide audience compared to films which are normally released only on the internet which are Art house film and only appeal to a niche market.
The reason why Simultaneous Perception will have a theatrical release is because it has conventions which fit in with the conventions of a mainstream but however at the same time Simultaneous Perception is unique in perspective of the story line of Simultaneous perception. In Simultaneous perception their is a close up of the subject who is dead.
In terms of mise en scene we wanted to have a natural effect to show that extraordinary things happen to normal people and so we chose a scenery that the audience would not expect anything so that the audience is shocked when the audience sees the extraordinary event.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
A prime example of the audince that our film aims for is the film Drive Angry 3D. The film stars Nicolas Cage - who plays a man who has just escaped from hell, and an attractive lady friend called Amber Heard who is describes as "sexy" and "tough as nails" in the plot summary. Unsurprisnigly, the film attarcted an overwhelming majority of male viewers, with 73% of the audience being men. The biggest age group for this film is 15-24, with 61% of the audience in this age category. It is a high action, fast paced thriller, with redemption, revenge, death, blood and guts and a lot of fantasy. So this kind of thriller obviously attracts men of the 15-24 age group the most. This is the age category we hope to go for, while we think both males and females will want to see this.
It’s important when making your film that you know your target audience and for Simultaneous Perception are target audience is 15-24 years old as they are the biggest consumers of thrillers for example Unknown which is similar to the concept of are film and has similar conventions to our thriller their main target audience was 15 to 24 years old. Gender wise are target audience will be men as men stereotypically like the conventions of thrillers like dead bodies, mystery, extraordinary events happening in ordinary situation etc., and this was present in Unknown which appealed to a male audience rather than a female audience with 54% men watching Unknown compared to 46% women who watched Unknown.
Question 5
Question 5
Question 6
Our opening made good use of all the technologies available to us, including final cut pro, garageband, and of course the High definition cameras.
The camera was small and lightweight, meaning we could move around easily with it, and film in awkward places - which at one point included me lying on the ground. The tripod was also useful to help us steady the camera for shots such as the establishing shots and pans of the area. It was incredibly detailed and picked up all of the different sounds in the natural area of the park, which included the birds singing which added well to the mise en scene. There was also no blur due to the high definition of the camera, which helped to create quality filming with ease.
The camera was sometimes difficult to deal with however, with certain trivial things getting in the way of a perfect filming process. Such things include the difficulty to attach and detach the camera from the tripod and the no so sturdy connection between the two when filming. This unfortunately shook the camera when filming in a windy environment. This perhaps added to the mise en scene of the uncertain surroundings for the thriller, but nevertheless, they were problems we had to deal with in the editing process.
Final cut pro was vital in creating the opening. Unfortunately, there were out takes and mistakes from the actor in our opening, and the editing software enabled us to cut these mistakes out, and allow the film to run smoothly. Editing helped us to cut videos which were too long and use transitions - notably for the credits - to help with smooth running and to go with the created music.
For the soundtrack and music, we used garageband, which was also very helpful. The music added to the mise en scene and atmosphere, and, in the typical convention of a thriller, it added tension to the opening. Creating the music and finding the appropriate soundtrack proved difficult, as we needed to create an atmospheric feel which made the audience feel uneasy watching it. The credits involved a different soundtrack to the main piece.
We tried to appeal to are male audience by appointing a young male lead who the audience can relate to and understand what the male lead is going through like for instance there is a part of Simultaneous perception when the protagonist David is reading a revision book and at least half of the audience are in a time of their life where they are studying for the exams so this makes people in our target audience think the film is ordinary so it becomes a big shock when the protagonist sees a dead body of himself it changes the atmosphere of the film.
We tried to appeal to are male audience by appointing a young male lead who the audience can relate to and understand what the male lead is going through like for instance there is a part of Simultaneous perception when the protagonist David is reading a revision book and at least half of the audience are in a time of their life where they are studying for the exams so this makes people in our target audience think the film is ordinary so it becomes a big shock when the protagonist sees a dead body of himself it changes the atmosphere of the film.
There is a variety of shots in Simultaneous perception for example there is a master shot to set the scene in the beginning of the scene it leaves the audience wanting more because the scenery does not tell the audience anything about the film it leaves the audience wanting more. A low angle is used on the body when it moves up slowly to the face of the protagonist this creates suspense hopefully this will encourage the audience to watch the rest of the film to know more about the film and what it is about.
The audience is put into the shoes of the protagonist David when cross cuts from the body of the protagonist of the body and the face of the protagonist the audience the effect this gives is that it leaves the audience shocked and confused and it leaves the audience wanting more.
Question 7
When we discovered that we had to create a Thriller movie opening, we immediately went to find out the typical conventions of a thriller are. When we found the main ones out, we then started to put together various ideas on what our main task opening could be. Many of the ideas were not very good, but some ideas we developed into full ideas. The one we finally came up with was where a character finds a dead body in a park - which is himself. The way in which he finds this body was changed several times, but we were pleased with how he found the body in the end.
A thriller film requires quick, short shots, especially in the tense scenes, so that the nervousness, and "on edge" feel for the audience is there. The climax of our opening uses this convention as the camera cuts from the face of the alive protagonist to the one of the dead one, lying on the floor.
We created a detailed storyboard and plan for what we would film and what shots we would do, and in general, we followed this plan when it came to the actual filming. Some things we decided to add, or change - including at first, a new character which runs behind the protagonist and by the end is suggested to be the killer. However, on reflection, we decided that this was giving too much away for the opening scene, and instead we decided to re shoot. In the re shoot, we filmed some more establishing shots to set the scene.
Our ability with a camera has greatly improved, as before this filming, we had never used a camera so advanced with a tripod. We used various shots including a point of view shot when the protagonist is reading the book and there are also high angles and low angles - not to a great extent, but they were used nevertheless.
We definitely feel more confident with the software we used on the macs. Before, and plenty of times during the process, macs proved very frustrating, as we are both used to using windows computers, and this was a new experience. We do feel we have improved however, and we started to get to grips with how to work the different equipment including getting the videos from the camera to the mac and how to export the finished video.
Music was a continued problem, as we were unsure of how to get the music from garageband onto final cut pro. Credits were also an issue, as we had to try and understand how to work the credits on Motion, and the tools to use. Rendering these various credits onto final cut pro was also a drawn out process which was unfortunate, but in the end, we got it done.
We think that as a whole, the opening was a success in fulfilling the criteria of a thriller film. Conventions which include characters identity, character in danger, and an average person getting caught up in trouble. All of these conventions were added to by the tense music and quick editing in certain places to create atmosphere and uncertainty.
