Storyboard version 2

1) Shot 1 is a POV shot of our dog walker who is walking along an alleyway.  POV shot works very well here as we are trying to create realism in our thriller.

2) Shot 2 is of the POV shot looking around.  This is significant as we are showing the surrounding area we are using.

3) We then cut to our opening credits which is our actors list.  This helps us create tension throughout our thriller.

4) The third shot will still be a POV of our dog walker picking up a glove.  We will have it zooming in showing the glove up close.

5) Our fourth shot will be a dog walker approaching the props we are using (bags/phone/school folder) the significance of this creates tension of what is going to happen next.

6) We will cut to who it will be directed by being an important part of our thriller. 

7) There will be a close up shot of our dog walker picking up the different props we are using.

8) It will then cut back to our credits showing who it will be produced by.

9) We will then go on to the phone ringing in which it will be a medium shot of it ringing creating tension of who is phoning.

10) We will then show who it will be co-produced by which is a significant role in our thriller.

11) The next shot will be the POV of our person running showing different scenery and what is happening.

12) We will then cut back to our credits to see who had produced the music.

13) The next shot will be a tracking shot of a car leaving creating suspense and mystery for the audience.

14) We will then cut to our final shot which will be our title "Missing".

Evaluation

Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Used
In our thriller opening we used a convention called the 'narrative' which is where a film is centered around a crime which happens at the beginning. We used this because we thought it was an effective and common convention that are used in thriller openings. We used this convention as we felt that most people are attracted to film by the first five minutes, by adding tension and excitement and crime in the opening we felt we can entice the viewers in and persuade them to watch the rest of the film. We used a POV (point of view shot) to give the viewers a good perspective of what the person finding all the girls belongings was feeling and how they were reacting to it, but saying this we made sure that we didn't reveal to much, but just enough for the audience to realize what might happen in the rest of the film. The crime that we have used is a kidnapping, this is what we wanted to centre our film plot around as we felt that the
 narrative was the perfect convention for this crime.

A film that is a prime example of the convention 'narrative' is The Dark Knight, this is because this film has used the same 'narrative' convention to show the robbery that the joker does at the start. This makes the audience think about what might happen in the rest of the film, as well as them getting the excitement and thrill of a crime happening in the very opening scene. It will then allow them to engross themselves into the movie hopefully no making them more likely to continue to watch the film all way through and hopefully watching the other films that are also in the sequel of The batman films. They use 'narrative' to create and make a series of events that then lead the 'antagonist' (the joker) and the 'protagonist' (batman) into a final conflict at the end of the film.

Developed 

Another convention in our thriller that we have chosen is 'someone in distress', many different thriller films also use this convention as a way of making characters think about the situation that's happening in the movie its also another great way of keeping viewers firmly on the edge of their seats. By having 'someone in distress' it gives the audience the impression that something drastic, or exciting is going to happen this makes the tension build until finally later on in the film you find out why. It works especially well in our thriller opening as we have many distressing voice mail's sent to the main character from a number of different family members, close friends and even the girls boyfriend it allows the viewers to think and is less predictable as we cant physically see the characters.

Another thriller film that has 'someone in distress' is the film blood diamond, although it has the same convention it somewhat does not develop the same as the opening to our thriller film. The film is set in west Africa and begins with a father and son walking home from the child's day at school just like any other ordinary day, until all of a sudden the child is abducted and and the father is forced to be a miner in the RUF. The film is different to ours as rather than focusing on a numerous amount of people in distress it focuses on only two individuals who are in distress as they are unable to find each other due to being taken away to do forced separate things. The film is also similar to ours as we don't actually manage to see the child again till the end of the film, and the plot of our movie is that she eventually returns after being found by the police at a location that is unknown with her deranged father.

Challenged

A convention that we challenged in the opening to our thriller film is a POV (point of view shot) with the point of view shot that we used throughout the opening of our thriller we enabled the audience to see and work out the other characters from another ones point of view. By allowing the point of view from that character that picks up the young girls items of the floor to investigate why they were their, we don't actually know who the character is but we can begin to work out what the girl maybe like and what she maybe into or what types of clothing she likes to wear. We decided to use the point of view shot as we found it more suitable for our story line and made it more exciting and intensifying, and it made the tension build up fast, we continued to use this shot all the way through of our opening, this was effective as it would make the viewers stick to watching the rest of the film which is what we wanted.

A film that also used many point of view shots like our own was 'shutter island' the film is taken for some of it in the eyes of 'Leonardo DiCaprio'. The point of view shots are mainly used in the opening scenes of the film which is what we were trying to do in our opening scene. Its taken from the characters point of view to build up tension and excitement as he walks into this new space (a mental asylum) a place to which the character is not familiar and comfortable with. He walks through experiencing the surroundings characters unusual behaviours and strange emotions and actions until he finally becomes to experiencing some of the same throughout his stay in the place. It makes the viewers curious as to what sort of person the person entering the asylum is like and whether he inhabits some of the same characteristics that he experience upon first meeting other patients that are being held there.


2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The link below has the answer to the question above:

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

The answer to this question is situated within the link below. 

http://nfgsmedia.wikispaces.com/Missing

4. Who would be the audience of our media product?

The type of person that would be interested in our thriller film depends on a lot of different factors, this include their: age, class, gender, location, it also includes their hobbies, interests and past times. My answer will include and explain everything about our ideal audience.

Thomas Clyde, also known as Tom to his friends is currently studying film and media at Bournemouth university where he lives with best friend Georgia who is studying the same course as him. Tom also enjoys watching psychological thriller films as he loves the suspense and tension that's always building throughout the film, but as well as enjoying watching psychological thriller films Tom's also into horror films as well, both Georgia and Tom share the same likes for the same genres of films so they often find themselves out at the cinema or on the sofa spending hours watching countless horror films together. Tom also likes to read in his spare time he feels that by reading a book he can get the most out of life as there is always something new to learn. He can also be interested in filming magazines, hes always interested when the latest films are coming out in the cinema and when his favorite film comes out on DVD or BLU-RAY. He also enjoys surfing the internet looking at what other people think of movies both old and new, he enjoys making comments about what hes seen and engaging in group discussions about likes and dislikes of films online. Tom is very family orientated, he has two older brothers and one younger sister, so being one of the youngest in the family some of the things he does maybe influenced upon by his older siblings e.g likes and dislikes, favorite films and music. His family often have big family gatherings and parties, and Tom is always eager to come home to see his mum dad, brothers and sisters as often as he can get leave from university. But despite this Tom is eager to travel the world with Georgia, they want to volunteer together in Zambia Africa helping out with a local school project enabling kids that couldn't go to school to give them a place to learn and gain a future. Tom is also quite aware of fashion, he likes to be able to dress up in designer clothes, and he thinks that his appearance is the most important part of him as an individual. Hes always shopping at places like Hollister, Jack Wills, SuperDry etc, and he is not short from money off his mum and dad and can come across at times as a bit of a spoilt brat.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to complete this question we placed a series of annotations onto our completed thriller opening video 'missing' this can therefore be viewed at the link from our YouTube channel below. 

I feel that as an individual we have managed as a group to attract the right audience, and managed to meet their expectations and hopes of what they wanted in a thriller film and that they thought long and hard about how the felt whilst watching our opening to our thriller.

6. What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing a product?

During the production of this thriller opening I have most certainly gained a great deal of knowledge about a variety of different technologies that we have used both on the internet and on different software programmes. I have previously had the chance to experience how the technologies work but have gone from knowing the basics to now knowing how they work exactly, this post will explain and inform you of what I have learnt.

Blogger
Before starting this coursework project I had no idea that the programme 'Blogger' even existed, but after a few hours of getting to know the blogging site I was able to manage to set up and design the perfect blog for both myself and the rest of the group. After setting it up I was able to post blog posts effectively and efficiently which is a massive benefit when it came to planning and preparing opening sequence to our thriller film. I was startled at how easy Blogger had made it to navigate around the site allowing me to change different settings, including adjusting the layout, changing the background and making fonts different sizes, colours and embedding YouTube video's into our different posts. We could also tag our posts using key tags and for example 'Preliminary task' this was extremely useful as it made it simple to be able to find posts without having to scroll through every post that we have made to find a specific one, this was also handy for looking through both group posts and posts done individually. I feel that personally all of these easy to access and easy to navigate functions on the website was very helpful and allowed us to create a successful and professional blog of all the events and decisions that took place during the creation of our thriller opening.

Prezi

In order to make some of our blog posts more interesting to read and to look at we decided to use the website Prezi, this is a cloud based presentation software for exploring and sharing ideas on a virtual canvas. I had personally never used this website before, and when first using it I found it difficult to navigate around. However, after using it over and over again I eventually got used to the layout and set up of the website and found myself creating numerous presentations in which I was able to insert a range of texts, images and different shapes which came in very handy.I think that It has been a big beneficial factor for our group, this is because its a new and exciting way of presenting information in a different type of format.

YouTube

In contrast to Blogger and Prezi: YouTube is a site that I am very familiar with and have had a long time experiencing what its all about and how it works. As a group YouTube was the main source of uploading our  preliminary task and our final opening piece onto. I was fairly comfortable with doing this as I have had a few past experiences with uploading videos onto you tube. I also felt quite comfortable with tagging and the placement of annotations onto our final piece as well as our preliminary task, and was able to manage embedding our videos that had been put on YouTube onto our blog. We were able to then get instant feedback, we could listen to what people thought and then that allowed us to make the necessary changes to anything that needed to be improved upon.

Final Cut Express

I had never once used final cut express before starting this new and exciting project, and upon first use I was baffled at how to use it, I didn't feel as comfortable using this software as i did with YouTube and blogger. But like the other programmes I grew to understand how it worked, it took time to find where everything was but eventually I managed to get the hang of it and when producing our preliminary task I got to test out all the different functions that the programme had to offer. I got to play around with the clips, move them around, place them wherever i felt they needed to go and tailor them to how I wanted them to be. As a result of  being able to play around with the software I become comfortable in being able to use different and more extreme functions being able to add exciting effects. This website was one of the primary sources of the success of creating our opening piece, i feel that as a group we learnt how to make a video using new software as well as gaining knowledge of a new programme that we hadn't had the chance to experience with in the past.

Apple i mac's

I have had previous experience of working on apple mac's and other apple equipment such as ipad's and apple macbook's. Because I have previously used apple equipment, and because at home I also own a few of apples items, I am comfortable and able to work with these items well and find them easy to navigate around. I was not confused or didn't have any trouble when trying to find the different programmes on the computer, and when wanting to upload different files to the blog I was able to easily access these with no trouble at all. I did however learn new skills on the mac's some of these being able to print screen different pages and work which could then be evaluated and wrote about on the blog. The mac was very essential for our work, this is because it had the correct software that we needed to to edit our production, with the help of final cut express.

Canon Legria Digital Camcorder

I have in the past had the chance and the experience of using a camcorder, not on the same as this one but one similar with the same functions. Because of using one of these in the past I could easily work out how to use it, this made it easy for me to film our preliminary task and be able to direct the others in my group on also how to use this piece of equipment. It was easy to zoom in and out, play and pause, turn off and on and play back recorded footage. It allowed us to shoot our opening in high definition, and it gave our piece more of a professional and better look. I believe that the camcorder that we used benefited us greatly when giving looking at the overall quality of the opening to our thriller piece. 

All in all I feel that, these numerous and different types of technologies have helped us with the, filming, editing and overall production of our thriller opening. I feel that as an individual they all helped us create a more proffesional piece of coursework, and that is one of the most important thing to us. As a group we have all learnt how to handle and use the different technologies that were available to us and we were very lucky in being able to use a wide range of different materials. I have learnt a great deal of information during this project and feel that as well as being able to learn more I've been able to try out new things that I didn't before know anything about.

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

To answer this question we added lots of annotations to our preliminary task discussing our progression into our practical work, the confidence we had when using the different equipment and how successful we have been overall, the video and link can be found and watched below.

I believe that doing the preliminary task helped me a lot before eventually making our final coursework piece,  it prepared me with how to use the camera when filming our task and it also allowed me to experience adding tags to our video of which we had to eventually. I have also felt that the preliminary helped me to practice our research and planning before creating a final video with edits and tags. I found that i need to do a lot more planning when it came to the real thriller opening, and because of getting the chance to practice this i think i did the right amount for the final results.

Evaluation

 1) In What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In our opening thriller right from the start we have tried to create mystery of what is going on. We have done this by jumping straight into the plot giving no background information of what has happened. Straight away we have followed what other Thrillers do at the beginning.

Challenged

This is a image taken from Shutter island in there opening credits. As you can see it looks very mystery and also there are opening credits to this. In our opening Thriller we have tried to challenge by creating a sense of mystery and tension from the beginning. We have also tried to have a shot of something which doesn't make sense to the audience but may as the film goes on. This was an important part of our opening Thriller because we had chosen a successful film to try and copy which made our thriller stand out. The music for Shutter Island and for this opening piece is very similar to what we chose. As the credits go on so does the music which builds up the whole time and climax's just before the end. Shutter island is a physiological Thriller something we wanted to mimic as the audience we had based upon would be something along the same lines.

This is how we have challenged Shutter Island. We have copied from the beginning the tracking bit with a POV shot it worked well there and linked very well with our Thriller. Although it was not in the same situation we felt that we challenged it by changing the scenario so it links more towards our Thriller.  We feel that this tracking shot mimicked very well and that we have it shaking gives it more realism from Shutter island.
.

Used

In our opening Thriller we have used many conventions fro other Thrillers to make ours stand out and to cover which most Thrillers have. For instance we have used the protagonist who is not seen at the beginning and also the antagonist who is heard but also not seen. We have linked ours directly with the Dark Knight as it is a Thriller film and the opening 2 minutes we used bits from. We have centered our plot around crime and the missing of the girl which in the dark Knight they do. Also in the first 2 minutes you don't know who the antagonist is so we have left bit open as the same. We have also followed with the same sort of music which builds up as it goes along.

The way crime is shown in our Thriller is through a girl going missing and knowing the Dad has something to do with it although he does show or we do not see him at all. In the Dark Knight we see that the crime is people being killed although only one person kills someone and then someone else kills them showing that there is crime and also there is mystery to who knows about each killing. Also that they keep there antagonist hidden through out the beginning squence is good as it leaves a sense of mystery for the audience who he is and is he there. We can directly link our opening to this through those conventions.

Developed 

As our Thriller is a psychological Thriller we felt that someone being taken and especially a young girl would help back us up that this is a Thriller. Many Psychological Thrillers usually have a twist of someone going missing or a sense of mystery which surrounds someone who is close to the protagonist. We have tried to portray this throughout our opening 2 minutes.

 

In our opening Thriller we have tried to develop the whole someone is distress. We have done this by following the film Taken and what they have done.  In the film Taken we see that someone is taken from the protagonist and in the opening 2 minutes we see that this has happened. We have developed this by showing that there is someone in distress through a series of voice mails raising much tension and suspense for the audience who are watching. 

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

http://nfgsmedia.wikispaces.com/Missing

4)How did you attract/ address your audience?

  All the way through the process of making our Thriller we have tried to stick with our audience. generally our audience is meant to be 15-21 as we have hit many points which a teenager, young adult would like to watch. As we have classed our Thriller as a physiological Thriller we noticed that someone under the age of 15 may not understand or enjoy a thriller likes this. Through our opening two minutes we have tried to make it clear what sort of Thriller we have and that it is clear that the older sort of teenager as they will understand it.

 In this piece of work we have always been thinking about different camera angles we could use. As we decide that the camera was going to be POV we could explore many different shots that would go with this. Such as we have many medium angle shots of different props we used so you could see them all and also where they are. Also we used close up shots so that the audience could see up close what sort of shots we were using. towards the end of our Thriller we used a tracking shot of a car this is a shot so it looked like someone was following the car and that also we could see the car constantly where it was going.


Mise-en-scene is a way we attracted the audience by using different props to help the audience understand what is going on. Such as we used a child's glove something that was made clear as it had a pattern on it and also that it looked like a young girl would have this.  This was significant because it helped with the whole Thriller element as you don't know who and what is going on.

Editing was a key part of the Thriller and we made very clear the voice calls over the top and also the effect which made the Phone stand out more to hit our audience age. With all the footage we got we had to edit it about and tun it into a thriller by adding special effects. Editing was a clear point in our Thriller as we edited music over the top to create tension and suspense all the way through.

In the opening 30 seconds we immediately wanted to establish our character and to let the audience know who the characters are. We did this with voice mails from the start showing that there is a mum and that this person must be young if she is being picked up from school and then we have the boyfriend which shows she must not be to young if she has a boyfriend. Also that we find a girls bag and glove shows that there is a girl been taken and that this makes it suspense on what is happening.

What have you learnt about technologies form the process of constructing this product?

Apple Mac

Through out the year Apple has been a piece of technology I have used the most. This is because Apple is very good for editing and also i spend a lot of my time in the classroom where the apple computers are. Apple is a type of technology which i have not used before and I have learnt how to use although it does take a long time. I feel i have benefited from using Apple as i learnt a new skill which i can use later on and also with A2.

Blogger

Blogger is the site I have been doing all my posts on and all the work I have done this year. As i have never used any sort of blogger before this, Blogger was a new sort of site i was using. I found Blogger not to hard to use and soon got the hang of adding backgrounds and different links. Blogger was a simple program to use and I soon got the hang of it making many posts and linking videos or different pictures to it.

Final Cut

Final cut was what i did all my editing on and also what I used for our preliminary task. I found Final cut first of all hard to use but soon got the hang of it using many affects and also learning how to cut and edit all of our video. I found this very fun and also learnt a lot about editing which would help me for next year.

Youtube

Youtube is what we posted our videos on and tagged over which was very good and helpful as we can get responses from many people around the world who are watching it This is a part of the course which i found very useful as we can see how popular it is and the view count showed this. We did a lot of our research on Youtube as we could find most opening credits there and also other AS Media videos to do so.

                                   Photoshop

As we made out Ident in Photoshop we found that it was very useful program to use. I had used Photoshop before so i benefited making a ident although it did take a few attempts we did get to the final piece. Photoshop was used for making first version of credits as we found it very useful with many different affects we could use.

Prezzi

Prezzi was what i used in my evaluation in which it was one topic with many other topics around it. I found prezzi very useful although it was a piece of application i had not used before. Prezzi was very helpful and significance in my coursework as i could link my work easily and do it on one slide making my work much quicker to do. Prezzi was quality to use in my evaluation as I had a question with many different topics coming off which was very easy to understand and to produce.

                                     Camera

The camera was a vital piece of equipment we used. The camera we used was a Canon LEGRIA HF R106 this was a HD camera and small so we could use it for hand held. The camera was a piece of equipment used to do the filming as it was the actor and it was from his point of view. The camera was a piece of equipment we all used to film as it was easy and we could use our ideas and watch them back. I felt very confident as it was a pretty simple piece of equipment to use.

Tripod

The tripod was a quality piece of equipment to use so we could get a still shot of the phone. We found it useful and that we could adjust a height with it. The tripod was a piece of equipment which was given to use and we thought that using it would be significance as we don't have a shaky sort of image making it more clear.

Looking back at your preliminary task/ 1st version. What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

 In the preliminary take I feel I have learnt a lot, it helped me learn a little more about the equipment we were using as I had no previous experience before. It also helped a lot in terms of making the final piece, as we started to get an idea of what we wanted to include. Also it helped with the research as it allowed us to work out what we can and cant do with the equipment we had. The preliminary helped me learn what camera shots were great to use in a thriller as well as we used a variety in the preliminary task.






This is our first version we made of our Thriller opening. this was a rubbish opening because we just had a girl walking around for 2 minutes not giving any clue to the audience what is going on. We decided to scarp this idea as it wasn't a Thriller and that no one knew what was happening as the opening went on. We used this for improvements as our second and final;l version benefited from some of the effects and the music we used went well with this.

Evaluation

Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use , develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Used

In our media product we use a convention called the narrative, which is when a film is centred around a crime that takes place at the beginning. We used this because we felt it was one of the main conventions used in thriller openings. It is used to draw the audience in as people are usually attracted to watching a crime based movie, it also encourages them to start to ask the question as to who was it. It was what also allowed us to use a POV shot to start investigating what has happened. We do not show much although we do show enough to make the audience realise that a crime has taken place. The crime that is given away to the audience is a kidnapping, this is what we wanted to centre our film around as there are so many storyline that we could potentially do with this convention. Also the music we use with the film makes the mood a lot more tense which works well with the narrative.

A film that also uses the narrative is The Dark Knight, it centres around a bank robbery where the antagonist a.k.a the Joker kills his mean, and steals all the money from Gotham bank. The film is a sequel to the award winning film Batman Begins, which also uses the narrative. They use it to start of a series of events that then lead to the protagonist and the antagonist in a conflict. This was one of the reasons as to why we used the narrative as we new we could lead the film down a path that lead to a final fight at the end that decides the fate of the film. It also makes the film a lot more editing as the audience does not know what is coming next. I also think that it can sometimes be used to create confusion like in this film when The Joker kills his own, this begins to define the main antagonist as a man who wants all or nothing.

Another convention that we used in our opening was antagonist shown in opening credits of the movie. We used this in the last few seconds of the opening credits, as the car drives away we get a glimpse of the antagonist. However we don't see enough of the protagonist to identify who it is, which I find important as it creates suspense and ensures that the audience doesn't know what the villain looks like. The antagonist is presented as some one who is mentally unstable as they have just kidnapped a teenage girl and ran away in a car. This again gets the audience to start questioning who the antagonist really is, which is what we wanted to achieve in the opening credits of our film. I also think showing the antagonist in the opening makes the audience start to feel the girls vulnerability.

A film that also shows the antagonist at the beginning of the film is the Da vinci code, in the opening few scenes the antagonist is chasing after a man. We do not know why he is chasing after him but the film makers have tried to make him look like a stereo-typical antagonist. This puts the audience on the edge of their seat as they realise what sort of antagonist the film is using because they will recognise it form films they may have seen before. This is because they have chosen to use a stereo typical which means it works to the films advantage as people know what sort of bad guy it is. However in my opinion this doesn't always work in thriller films as i believe that the main antagonist should think on his feet and be spontaneous, this makes the film unpredictable and a lot more intense on the audience.

Developed
A example of a convention that we have developed Someone in Distress. Thrillers usually have this as it is a great way to get the audience on the edge of their seat. Someone in distress usually gives the impression to the audience that someone is in some kind of trouble. We developed this in our opening credits as we show that someone is in some kind of distress, however we do not introduce the character at all throughout the opening. This works well because we also play voice messages throughout it, allowing the audience to get to know her and her family, although the they don't actually see her in the footage. I think that the voice mails work well as it makes the clip less predictable because the audience don't get to know the character fully they cant stereo type her.

Another thriller that has someone in distress is Blood diamond, it uses the same convention however it doesn't develop it like our opening. The film starts off in Africa with father and son walking back from school. The son is then abducted while the Dad is turned into a miner for the RUF. This variant of the convention works well in there film because the dad is in distress, while at the same time so is the son. Its different to ours because it doesn't focus the audience on one person instead the audience is supposed to think about both the people in distress. However a way that it is similar is that the child isn't seen until the end of the film, he isn't shown through most of the opening. The audience therefore are drawn into thinking about him. This particular convention also works well with this film because it gives the character a chance to develop during the period his son is away.
Another convention we used was an Innocent girl in a corrupt world. We used this in our opening because it makes the audience distressed as they begin to question whether or not it could happen in real life. We developed it again by not showing the innocent girl, as leaving out the character creates suspicion as to who she might be. A lot of thrillers use this as it is great for creatin the thrill that a thriller needs, it also gets the audience to start thinking thus it is common in phycological thrillers.

A film i know of that uses this is abduction, which is when a boy nearly gets kidnapped and his father and mother are shot in his home. As the plot thickens he finds out that there was a corrupt CIA agent that ordered for his parents to be killed. This particular convention is used well in this film as it is the bases of the storyline.

Challenged

This is an image taken from shutter island as we can see the opening of the film uses a POV shot. This is used at the beggining of the film to build up excitment as we are seeing it from the main characters point of view however we dont actually see him at this point. Its taking it from the main characters point of view while he is walking into the mental asylum. This makes us want to see the chracter even more as the audience is curious as to what sort of person is entering the asylum. In my opinion the shot works well at the start as its a great way to start the film and start to build up curiousity.

We also used a POV shot to start off our thriller as we found it more suitable for our storyline and to make the opening a lot more exciting and intense. We challenged shutter islands POV shot, as we tried it in a different scenario. Instead of being in a mental asylum we took it to a normal everyday scene that has abnormal circumstamces, all of the main chracters items are found on the floor in a mess. In my opinion this worked well inb our opening as it stays as one type of shot the whole way through and we basically follow in someones footsteps.

Another convention we challenged were the order of credits, we did this by showing the title of the film last. Analyseing other films we can see that the title usually comes before the opening few scenes. We decided to place the title at the ende because that way the whole opening is building up and up to a climax and then leaves you on a cliff hanger, whcich is when the title comes up and the film would supposedly begin.

Another film that uses this is seven, it starts with an opening few scenes then the opening credits begin. After all of this the title of the film suddenly pops up unexpectitly. Before it does this, we watch footage of the murderer preparing himself for his next kill, which is very distressing for the audience and makes this part more phycologically intense. we wanted to incorperate this into ours as we thought it was more dramatic if we placed the title right at the end of our credits.

  

 

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 

 

 

 

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

http://nfgsmedia.wikispaces.com/Missing

4. Who would be the audience of your media product?

It is very hard to choose an audience that will most likely watch our thriller due to different people liking different things. Plus where people live and who they hang around with can overly effect the films they enjoy and watch. So I am going to make a profile of who I believe will most likely watch our thriller based on my audience research.

Age: 40

Class: Middle

Gender: Female

Location: Bishops Stortford

Hobbies: watching Films/TV

Interests: Sports, Science

Pastimes: Reading (something that requires intelligence)

What they spend there money on: they will most likely spend there free money on a  movie as a treat or perhaps a new book that may have just been released.

Beliefs: Cristian

Values: Equality

In my opinion the ideal audience will most likely be this as middle aged people that can keep up with what is going on will enjoy the film most. the reason I think a female will enjoy it more is because the film is about a girl who gets kidnapped. which is perhaps something a mother could relate to.

 

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to complete this question we placed a series of annotations onto our completed thriller opening video 'missing' this can therefore be viewed at the link from our YouTube channel below.

I feel that as an individual we have managed as a group to attract the right audience, and managed to meet their expectations and hopes of what they wanted in a thriller film and that they thought long and hard about how the felt whilst watching our opening to our thriller.

 

 

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

Before I started the coursework i had no previous experience of this website. Over the course of the last few weeks i have learnt how to make posts, Import pictures and videos, make hyperlinks and Spell check my posts. Although I found it difficult at first to use this website, I soon became familiar with it and soon began to find it easier ti post quickly and swiftly. Designing our blog was very quick and simple as i found it simple to use, we also already had an idea of what we wanted it to look like before designing it.

The group used you tube for research and planning as well as posting our videos on to the Internet. As far as experience goes with using this website, I felt I was very experienced  as I could use it quickly and efficiently. When it came to research and planning the site was very useful as it had a very large variety of thriller clips and openings that the group could use. We were able to analyze different thriller openings then work out what worked well and what could be applied to our opening. We also used the site to post our preliminary task so other people could see it. We are also going to post our final piece on so we can receive feed back on our piece.

 Another website that I wasn't familiar with was Prezi, a site that can be used to make presentations in an entertaining way. I used this website to create short and entertaining presentations with my group. The website was very useful as it allowed us to present our ideas in a creative manner, as well as using a different method to present our work onto the blog. Having no previous experience of the site I sometimes found it confusing to use, however after spending some time using it i was then able to work quickly with it.

 Having experience of using sites like this in the past, I was able to work swiftly and efficiently with this particular site. We used it to find copyright free music for the thriller opening. One thing I found confusing about this site was the fact that it was very difficult to search for particular songs, it was very confusing as they crammed so much text onto one page. When we found the song we wanted it was very simple to download and transport to whatever device we wanted it on. The site, in my opinion was great for giving us a variety of copyright music which we needed for our thriller.

The camera we used to film was the HD cannon. I have no previous experience of using a camera like this making it sometimes difficult to film (at first). After a while of using the camera I soon began to use it quicker and a lot better. The camera was great as it offered great quality footage but was also easy to work around. The one thing that I found difficult with this camera was the amount of battery it had, it was hard sometimes to film all what we needed as the time we had was very little due to the amount of charge. The camera was very simple as it showed clearly what to press to use certain functions. The zoom function was very good as well as it could zoom in from a distance. To the left is a picture of the exact camera we used for the whole of our filming.

The tripod  was yet another piece of equipment that i have never used before. However it was extremely simple to use and was a very accurate piece of equipment. I found it very handy to have as it meant we could get steady shots for the opening. Although for our final piece we did not use a tripod, for our preliminary it was great. It stopped the camera shaking when it was moved making the shot look a lot better.

Before I started this subject I had limited experience using apple iMacs due to me only have ever used Microsoft windows in the past. However over the course of the last few weeks I have learnt how to use the Macs more effectively. Our group used them to edit our piece on Final Cut Express, I found the macs fast to use when it came to audience research. However when it came to making the final piece it was very slow due to us having to render every edit we made. This proved challenging as it was a large consumer of our time. Overall the Mac was essential in completing this project as it became very simple to use when it came to researching he audience. Also i believe if we were to use Microsoft Windows rendering would have been a lot slower than on the Macs.




Having no previous experience of using this program, I was eager to try it out and compare it to the Windows alternative which I have used before. Final Cut express was at first very complicated as I had never used anything like it before. After some time experimenting and getting to know the program I started to find it easier to use and a lot better than Windows movie maker, due to the program being a lot more professional.It also had a great variety of effects and edits that we could do/make, meaning we could make our opening look and sound a lot better through using this program on our opening. One complaint i would have over the program is that we had to render everything we did, meaning our time was being consumed by rendering the video. This also slowed the Macs down dramatically affecting their performance and meaning we had to wait a very long time for it to render, before we could do anything else.

 

 

 

 

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 preliminary take I feel I have learnt a lot, it helped me learn a little more about the equipment we were using as I had no previous experience before. It also helped a lot in terms of making the final piece, as we started to get an idea of what we wanted to include. Also it helped with the research as it allowed us to work out what we can and cant do with the equipment we had. The preliminary helped me learn what camera shots were great to use in a thriller as well as we used a variety in the preliminary task.

 

Props for the Thriller

Props for the Thriller

For our thriller here are a list of props that are going to be used during the opening sequence. They will be vital in adding both realism and the intensity of the opening.

Here are a list of props that will be used in the opening: handbag, glove, book, phone and a shoe. These will be used during the examination of the girls missing items by a dog walker. A car will also be used however it will come in at the end of the opening credits.

New Ident

New Ident

I decided to create a new Ident for our group as I felt that the old one was not developed enough as it should be. I used Photoshop to import the background Polaroid image, and then on-top of that added a blizzard photo which I edited and fitted into the frame.

Audience Research

Audience Research for our Opening

Joanne Wiggett, age 41, female-What do you expect in a thriller opening? I like it to give a brief introduction into the story but not give the whole story away. I like it to get me thinking on what the rest of the film will include. I like the element of surprise in a thriller so when i can guess whats going to happen, i usually think its a bad film. How long do you want the opening credits to be? I can usually watch them for around three minutes maximum, usually any longer than that I get bored, for example Sky-fall's was way to long and dull and in my opinion where the worst opening credits I've ever seen.

Jay Start, age 14, male- What do you expect in a thriller opening? I usually enjoy the James bond ones only because it has the music I like. So really opening credits for me are all about there music my favorite music I've ever heard in and opening credit sequence is the quantum of solace one. How long do you want the opening credits to be? I don't mind as long as there entertaining and keep me on the edge of the seat.

Terry Allen, age 62, male- What do expect in a thriller opening? I like action packed films so as long as its a fast paced or intense opening i know ill enjoy it. How long do you want the opening credits to be? I like them to last around 5 minutes, they can be very entertaining if they are the right length but if there to short  you cant get into them and if they are to long they can be really boring.

I have concluded through my audience research that the age group that opening credits matters more to are middle aged. I will use the whole of the research to make my thriller opening suitable for all audiences.