Thriller Evaluation - Re-Submission

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

In the planning and construction of our thriller opening, we have taken inspiration from many of the thriller conventions relating to location, costume and characters.


To begin, I will summarise the forms and conventions of the thriller genre. They can be broken down into four categories, characters, narratives, themes and iconography. With reference to characters, some common examples demonstrated within the thriller genre include assassins, victim, criminals and detectives. They may not all fit under these specific brackets, some characters do hold similarities with one of the above but may slightly challenge the common characteristics. Narratives include being watched, deception and death. Death is a narrative most are familiar with as it occurs in numerous films, being watched may be shown in a spy thriller. Entrapment, isolation and revenge are all examples of common themes of thriller films. Finally, iconography includes confined spaces, running water and bars on windows. These are often shown but not specifically as worded, for example, some objects may remind us of bars and entrapment but not be 'bars on windows', this is shown in my case study of Panic Room, in which the tall buildings give a feeling of bars and entrapment.

The house used in the opening is at the end of an extensive driveway, the establishing shot used at the beginning was aimed at showing the large scale of the house and how it overwhelms those who travel along the driveway. I think it does well in introducing the audience to the location. It gives a sense of isolation and danger for the character involved, the pizza delivery boy. This helps to add suspense to the film immediately as we sense something may happen to the boy, these things conform to typical thriller films in that there is suspense, isolation and possibly death. Something seen in thrillers quite often is the sense of confinement/entrapment; we have tried to show this through the camera work and sound.

This idea of entrapment with the underlying sense of danger is seen in the thriller The Others, which is also set in quite a similar location. At the beginning we angle the camera slightly so as to make the fence significant, it seems as though as I cycle down the driveway I am being trapped inside. Also, the sign of the bare trees symbolises time passing and death, which are very significant in our film, as time has passed since the home video at the beginning and the girl has died. Below is a screenshot of the establishing shot..

With reference to sound, the bulk of the soundtrack has quite an eerie high-pitched noise which, to me, gives a sense of isolation and unknowing. This adds to the tension and the overall achievement of the product with regards to fitting in to the thriller genre through conforming to its conventions.

Running water is also a convention of the thriller genre; we have incorporated this in a sense in the use of the swimming pool. But, instead of the usual running water, ours is still, slightly developing this convention of the thriller genre. It is seen just after the girl is seen so it suggests there is no longer a happy and energetic girl, her life came to a halt and she is a ghost of her former self. It could also connote the stillness and emptiness of her father’s life after she passed away. Below is a screenshot of the swimming pool..

As aforementioned in another post, the location is quite similar to that of The Others, with a large building and large surrounding gardens. This location is daunting and adds to the suspense as the audience will see the location as mysterious and maybe evil.

The sinister character of the girl is quite a common character in thrillers; an example of a film including this character is REC. This is an unusual character in that is the shell of a dead girl, with an evil and vengeful mind. There is usually an evil character in thrillers, bringing about death and suffering but to make the film more tense and believable, a more relatable character had to be involved; the pizza delivery boy. This helps to add to the suspense and tension as he is seen as vulnerable and as the audience can relate to him, the sinister situation seems more scary and tense. This challenges the conventions of the thriller genre as the strong character, be they a victim or a villain, is usually male. Thrillers demonstrating this convention include Taken and Law Abiding Citizen. Taken emphasises the power inequality between men and women as the story revolves around the kidnapping of a young girl. However, in our film, the strong character is the young daughter. Below are the two contrasting characters..

In the thriller genre, many scenes seem to be quite dark, adding to the tension. For example, the opening scene of Vacancy, the surrounding darkness of the car gives a sense of the unknown and suggests that something is lurking within it. We wanted to do this although the darkness in our opening is artificial, using an effect on iMovie to make it seem like night. I think this is good in that it makes the location seem more mysterious and sinister, it also makes the delivery boy seem more vulnerable.

In addition, a tool very commonly used in thrillers to help create tension and suspense is non-diegetic sound. Many thrillers have a well thought out soundtrack which matches the action so as to effectively create the desired atmosphere. I think our soundtrack that Jack made especially for the film is very good in adding to the atmosphere, especially as it matches the action and thus intensifies the various scenes within the opening.

Finally, conforming to the features of many thriller films, we tried to include many polysemic objects/effects, to add to the atmosphere of the film. For example, in the home video at the beginning, we decided to increase the intensity of the red colour in the picture. This colour connotes warmth, stability, success and emotion, but it also holds connotations of blood, danger and death. This is effective because in this warm and happy time, it is suggested to the audience that dangers are lurking around this young girl, creating suspense.

Throughout the genre there are various modes of address used to communicate to the audience, for example, some have a narrator, usually one of the main characters. In our opening, although it probably would have changed as the film progressed, the main communication to the audience is through camera shots and effects, very little dialogue is used. I think this adds to the tension in that it helps to create a sense of isolation whilst the boy is walking or cycling around the location on his own.

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

One of the characters, the pizza delivery boys, is quite a normal character, around the age of 16. We have this character as the delivery person as the difference in height between I and Ed, the father, shows him to be vulnerable. But, also, it is quite usual to see young people in jobs such as these, simple jobs that acquire them some income in order to buy products and services the youth are interested in. This is quite a current character, it does not referring to a social group seen in the past. This character is quite recognisable through the iconography around him, the bike and the bag. The character is quite common in the thriller genre, not necessarily with all these specific attributes, but with the same essential factors. Many thrillers have young characters that are established as quite innocent and vulnerable, as in ours, for example, the young girl at the beginning of Law Abiding Citizen. She is taking part in the usual activities of her social group, like the boy in our thriller. The audience can relate to her in that they will recognise the type of person she is. We have used this character for varying reasons, a main one was because he is around the same age as the bulk of our target audience, 16-18 year olds, therefore they can relate to him.

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

I do not think it would be released in cinemas as films released in this way are mostly new and exciting films, contributing to the film industry with features not commonly seen. On the other hand, our film very much conforms to the conventions of its genre with not really anything new to offer to the audience. So, being against the method immediate cinema release, I think it would be released onto DVD for the audience to purchase. Also, I think it would be shown on television, late at night to conform to its sinister nature, not suitable for young children therefore a certain classification would be needed. Older teenagers and adults interested in film would watch film channels that would show the film and be interested to see new releases, therefore watch our film.

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

I think our target audience, with the help of our audience research, are people around the ages of 15-18, both male and female. The full production of our thriller, done well, would probably demand an age 15 restriction. I think many other people, older than this age range would also enjoy our film. The audience would need to be quite intelligent, but not greatly. As shown in our feedback to the rough edit, I think we have quite successfully created the beginning of a film that is enjoyable for this age range. They need to be able to think and understand the story which, already showing an abnormal twist, would show many complications demanding the audience to figure out what is happening. Our audience would enjoy thrillers/horrors with paranormal experiences, for example, Paranormal Activity, The Others and Inception.

I think films demanding thought from the audience are generally more successful, especially with today's audiences as they want something different from basic storylines seen in the past. Psychological thriller is now a very popular sub-genre. An example of a recent film demanding careful thought and focus is Inception. Audiences today have a very big impact on the films produced due to their needs and demands, they express these through new media such as Youtube, on to which they can argue what should be made or even created something of their own. Gauntlett (2007) says that the boundary between producer and audience is eroded by new media to the extent that it is makes little sense to talk about media audiences anymore- 'Media Studies 2.0'.

Referring to data on imdb.com, people aged under 18 rated The Others 7.9. I chose this data as this film is reasonably similar to ours so this shows how this age demographic may respond to our media product. The response is quite successful and hopefully ours would attract similar attention. Although this shows data from all the ages below 18, it is likely that these people are no younger than about 15; people younger than this probably do not get involved in things like this.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We knew that the interaction with our audience was very important; we needed to hear their thoughts and feelings towards the draft edit in order for us to gain a more informed idea of our current progress and how we could improve it further. The screening that we carried out, along with the questionnaire that was given to them, enabled them to emphasise the positive and negative aspects of our film so we knew the strengths which we could then build on and we knew the weaknesses which we could attempt to eradicate.

We utilised many of the typical thriller conventions in the attempt to engage our target audience and comply with their preferences. For example, to increase the tension and suspense, we had very little dialogue, with eerie music in the background as the delivery boy travels through the dark location. This suggests to the audience something is going to happen, danger is exciting for young audiences so hopefully it is successful in maintaining their attention as they wait to see what happens. Also, the delivery boy is around the same age as our target audience making him relatable and therefore the situation is intensified.

Features in the final edit were included, in some cases kept from the rough edit, as we knew they successful because of the audience feedback. We conducted a viewing with a group of our target audience and they filled out a questionnaire. For example, the effects we used were very popular amongst the audience. This, as well as many other things were successful in creating tension and invoking emotion in the audience, this is seen in the answers of the question 'What did you feel when watching it?'. 4 people said fear, 3 said intrigue and 2 said tense.

See Audience Feedback.

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

Before the project I had no experience with the use of camcorders or editing. But, as we used them throughout the preliminary and the final project, I felt a growing confidence with both and now have no problems with either. I can now record confidently and import videos on to computers with ease. My group used iMovie as our editing program so I am not familiar with Final Cut. To begin with, I was quite anxious to use iMovie with its various tools that I suspected I would find difficult to remember the location and purpose of, but with the help of others I became comfortable with it quite quickly. I can now confidently do things such as edit clip lengths, add effects, add text and add music. These techniques were very useful in improving the film and making it more effective, for example, adding the light to dark effect was very helpful; if it was left in daylight it would be nowhere near as tense as darkness is always much scarier as evil things can hide and wait to attack the character being watched by the audience.

Another new experience for me was the iMacs. I have used the windows operating system for as long as I can remember so it was quite strange using this new system. There were many very slightly problematic differences for me in the different layout of the keyboard, but that was quite quickly gone with help from other students and teachers with experience with them. Also, the use of the system itself on the computer took quite long to get used to with things such as the different location of saving tools confusing me slightly until I got used to it.

New media has been a great help throughout the planning and production stages of our product, including Blogger and Youtube. Blogger was the central point on which we posted the various pieces of information needed to plan and produce our product. Youtube enabled us to view other media products for inspiration, in particular, thriller films. It also allowed us to get out product on the internet.

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

I think that although our preliminary task product turned out to be alright, our preparation could have been quite a lot better. For example, group discussion is vital, as I learnt through the lack of it in the preliminary and the success of it in the final project. By making the mistake of not having enough discussion in the preliminary, I tried to contribute as best I could and tried to encourage the group to discuss the project. Discussion is very helpful in many areas, not only in planning. For example, when editing there are many opinions which we didn't always express, especially me. So in the final project, I was sure to give my ideas in planning and construction.

Also, in the preliminary task, we put quite a lot of effort and people onto one task, instead of spreading the work and therefore getting more done. In the final product we learnt from that and it seemed more like a group effort. I now realise how important it is that you utilise the people you have and also make the most of the time you have. In the preliminary, through the lack of the things mentioned above, quite a lot of work was left quite late, leaving the final push quite hard and stressful, well, it wasn't as stressful as it would have been in the final project, which is why we made changes in our method in the final project and we were far calmer and more confident with our product.

We all had many different individual tasks. I created a post about the conventions we aimed to include in our opening and I also created a synopsis. And I made a shooting schedule. Also, I played the pizza delivery boy and brought in the costume, the bag and the bike, with Ed providing the pizza box we used. Ed created the plot for the rest of the film, and a characters post containing information on all the characters in our opening. Also he played the girl’s father, and brought in all the things needed for his character. Jack created a post on the location and he created the soundtrack on GarageBand. He filmed the opening and with some help from the rest of the group, made decisions on the shots used and what the characters done. Emily made a post about the costumes props and objects and she played the girl in the opening. She brought in all the things she needed for her character.

I also learnt how important it was for individuals in the group to share ideas and knowledge, I feel this was not done as well as possible in the preliminary but when done in the final project we seemed to be making good progress and coming up with more ideas, and supporting members when they done so. Because we contributed more, we had a larger variety of things to choose from to include in our product, giving it a better chance of success.

In the preliminary, with the advice from Ed, we recorded many shots multiple times so as to make sure we would have at least one that was satisfactory. This was a very successful method which proved to be worthwhile when editing so we carried it through to the final project.

Whilst editing the preliminary project, we realised how important the music was and to choose an appropriate soundtrack. After having looked for quite a long time, we found a successful song and felt that it had a huge impact on the film and its effect. So, in the final project I knew music would be important. With Jack's expertise he was confident enough to create it himself, so we had music specifically for film, so the effect was more likely to be successful in making the film more tense.

I think the audience feedback went quite well and we learnt many of the audiences thoughts towards our film. For me it was very helpful, as I expected. I thought there would be quite a lot of silly answers but there were very few. I felt the audience understood our films story and grasped its intentions for the rest of the film.

I think a strength of our opening is the effects that we used. I think it makes certain parts much better and helps to make it more tense. Including the effects of the flashes of the girl, the day to night effect, the effect used on the point of view shot from the girl and the effect used when we see the girl behind her father. A weakness of our production is the poor continuity at the end during the conversation, I think this makes it look poor and very amateur. Another strength I believe it has is the location. It is very compliant with our needs to make it conform to thriller conventions.

The most important thing that I have learnt in this process is how vital group cooperation and effort is. I had an idea that this would be needed but underestimated how important it is in successfully planning and constructing a film product. It is needed to get the multiple tasks done and compare and choose different ideas. Without doing this successfully, we probably would have turned up at the location (if we had decided on one) with barely anything to work from and not really know what we would film or how we would do it.