Research and Planning: Location
Here is an image looking down the main corridor of GWPAHS. We are planning to use this corridor to track Miss Smith walking down and meeting Mr Jones. We are able to use several camera angles to produce a good edit.
This is our chosen location outside of Miss Smith's classroom where the two brainwashed block the entrance to Miss Smith's classroom.
Here is an image looking up the corridor in which we will use to film the running scene. We have chose this location as we are able to position the cameras in many angles to show a fast paced running when editing. We can film from outside in through the windows and use both the top and bottom of the corridor.
Here i have added an image of the location we will filming the head teacher in his office, and also where Miss Smith gets dragged into the head teachers office.The office will also the camera will go to black out and the door will then slam. We have chosen this office as it is along the corridor in which Miss Smith will be cornered into along with also be very close to other shooting locations so the travelling between shoots will be much smaller and further filming and perfection can be acquired.We chose this location as the older look of the school would look familiar to our target audience, making the film easier to relate to and make the audience more relaxed when watching so the cliffhangers/ scary moments of our film are more effective.
Research and Planning: Mr Jones' costume
For our character Mr Jones, we want him to wear a business like suit or smart shirt and tie, we have found pictures from popular tv series Waterloo Road, these clothes are how Teachers are represented on tv so we shall use similar clothes in our film.
Research and Planning: Miss Smith's costume
For the character 'Miss Smith' we wanted her to wear flattering smart clothes, so we searched for images of current teachers and school staff and picked examples similar to what we would like Miss Smith to look like, we are likely to use smart trousers, a blouse and cardigan for 'Miss Smith'.
Research and Planning: Jack's Costume
We want our character 'Jack' to look as rebellious and naughty as possible but to keep him looking like a secondary school student, trainers instead of smart shoes, scruffy/spiky hair and scruffy/unsmart uniform are what our opinion of this character is, above are some examples of these traits, we will hope to use similar clothing and hair style in our final film.
Idea Presentation and development: Animatic Research
An Animatic is basically a moving storyboard, an animatic is a video or slideshow of the images in a storyboard but the camera angle can rotate and zoom slightly and all sound effects dialogue and music is included in this video, this is the final development of an idea before filming as it shows all the things a storyboard does with sound and shot length as well creating a very similar representation of the final product, our group has researched these as we plan to create one to summarize our idea before entering the final planning stages, we will be able to have a clear view on our mind of what our finished film will look like, here is an example of an animatic i have found on youtube:
This animatic uses hand drawn images but for our own we will use the computer generated images we have already made for our storyboards, an animatic will probably not be used on set but can be used during editing to make the final product look more like the initial idea, we plan to use our animatic when editing our final product to stay within a reasonable range of the shot length and other aspects of our film.
This animatic uses hand drawn images but for our own we will use the computer generated images we have already made for our storyboards, an animatic will probably not be used on set but can be used during editing to make the final product look more like the initial idea, we plan to use our animatic when editing our final product to stay within a reasonable range of the shot length and other aspects of our film.
Idea Presentation and development: Storyboard
Our group followed the basic format i described in the previous post to create this storyboard in a printable A4 format.Catechize Academy Storyboard
This storyboard looks very professional and can show us our film very clearly, we can use these pictures we created in our alternative storyboard and animatic later in our project.
This storyboard looks very professional and can show us our film very clearly, we can use these pictures we created in our alternative storyboard and animatic later in our project.
Idea Presentation and development: Storyboard Research
Our group has no images or animations of what our final product will look like and are only working by a treatment and script to visualize the film, a storyboard can be used to combat this problem or can even be made ahead of the script to present to company executives and funders to give them a clearer and more interactive look at the final product rather than having to visualize, we are going to be creating a storyboard at this stage in our project to develop the shot angles, locations, characters, lighting, and many other aspects in our film. A storyboard is very similar to a comic book, a series of pictures showing a story, but a storyboard is much more professional, here is an example of a comic:
This comic has the series of pictures and a small caption at the bottom telling the story, also most comics use speech bubbles to show speech, a storyboard has the series of pictures but instead of a caption telling the story, it uses a caption to talk about the shot angle, lighting, and many other aspects of a film, our group are going to attempt to make a storyboard for our film 'Catechize Academy' using this basic format, first we will make one out of computer generated images and captions ideal to be printed out onto paper, i will also be making a storyboard in a new interactive slideshow with the same computer generated images as in the first one ideal to be sent via the internet and viewed on computers, phones and also electronic photoframes, this new approach makes the sharing of the storyboard easier and makes it more accessible on different devices. This research has benefited us as we can now produce a storyboard that can give us a better view of our final product and can be used to develop our initial ideas and it can also help during filming to know what shot angle and lighting etc should be used.
This comic has the series of pictures and a small caption at the bottom telling the story, also most comics use speech bubbles to show speech, a storyboard has the series of pictures but instead of a caption telling the story, it uses a caption to talk about the shot angle, lighting, and many other aspects of a film, our group are going to attempt to make a storyboard for our film 'Catechize Academy' using this basic format, first we will make one out of computer generated images and captions ideal to be printed out onto paper, i will also be making a storyboard in a new interactive slideshow with the same computer generated images as in the first one ideal to be sent via the internet and viewed on computers, phones and also electronic photoframes, this new approach makes the sharing of the storyboard easier and makes it more accessible on different devices. This research has benefited us as we can now produce a storyboard that can give us a better view of our final product and can be used to develop our initial ideas and it can also help during filming to know what shot angle and lighting etc should be used.
Idea Presentation and development: Script draft
This is the first draft of our Script for 'Catechize Academy', we have followed the format of the example in my previous post. We have created a script so we can give them out to the actors so they will know roughly what happens, any stage directions they must do and lines they must read so that they can practice several nights before filming. This will hopefully make filming faster and to a higher quality.
Catechize Academy Script: First draft
Our group now has two forms of presenting our ideas, one to present it to company executives and other high ranking members of staff in the film industry in the form of a treatment , and we have one to present it to the actors, creative directors and camera crew etc. in the form of a script. Obviously we wont need to present the treatment to company executives as we have none but the script will be useful on set for the actors so they have clear instructions of what they must do, this script has helped our group to understand the process of presenting ideas and we can use this and our treatment to produce a storyboard and animatic to develop our idea further.
Catechize Academy Script: First draft
Our group now has two forms of presenting our ideas, one to present it to company executives and other high ranking members of staff in the film industry in the form of a treatment , and we have one to present it to the actors, creative directors and camera crew etc. in the form of a script. Obviously we wont need to present the treatment to company executives as we have none but the script will be useful on set for the actors so they have clear instructions of what they must do, this script has helped our group to understand the process of presenting ideas and we can use this and our treatment to produce a storyboard and animatic to develop our idea further.
Idea Presentation and development: Script Research
A script is a very important tool to have in the film industry, it can be used in casting, developing, shooting and editing a film, our group is planning to create a script using information from our treatment to help us in these four areas and also to help us create a storyboard and animatic later on in our project. Here is an example of a script so we can see the format to follow and the general contents of a script.
(unable to download or embed)
Our group are now going to create a script similar to the layout of this one and can then use it when casting, developing, shooting and editing our film so that we make sure we pick correct actors, keep all important aspects when developing, include all the shots we desire when shooting and don't delete important sections when editing. A script will also benefit us by making our final filming quicker and easier for actors and for us.
(unable to download or embed)
Our group are now going to create a script similar to the layout of this one and can then use it when casting, developing, shooting and editing our film so that we make sure we pick correct actors, keep all important aspects when developing, include all the shots we desire when shooting and don't delete important sections when editing. A script will also benefit us by making our final filming quicker and easier for actors and for us.
Idea Presentation and development: Treatment feedback analysis
In the feedback our group had very little to analyze as the audience seemed to grasp the idea and understand it well which is exactly what we had wanted, one issue was raised about the quality of actors we would be able to use but tom assured sam that drama teachers knew suitable actors for our rolls so we class our treatment as a big success as it cleared up a lot of the confusion surrounding our plot. I can use this treatment as my final one now as it has no faults so i can now use it to make the story board, animatic and script aswell.
Idea Presentation and development: Treatment feedback
Here is the feedback we received after presenting our treatment draft to an audience, we gathered this feedback so we could know how to develop our idea and treatment any further so that our final film is understandable.
I will analyze the feedback we received to pick our information we can use.
I will analyze the feedback we received to pick our information we can use.
Idea Presentation and Development: Treatment draft
This is the first draft of our treatment for our thriller film 'Catechize Academy', i have followed the basic layout of the example in my previous post.Catechize Academy Treatment : First draft
This treatment now gives our group and others a clear view of how our final product will look, we can use this to now help us make a script, storyboard and animatic after some research into the function, layout and application of these types of development and presentation. We can soon begin to research the costume, props and location using this treatment as it gives the detail we require to create a visualisation. We will also present our treatment to an audience to gather feedback which i will then analyse and use to create our final treatment.
This treatment now gives our group and others a clear view of how our final product will look, we can use this to now help us make a script, storyboard and animatic after some research into the function, layout and application of these types of development and presentation. We can soon begin to research the costume, props and location using this treatment as it gives the detail we require to create a visualisation. We will also present our treatment to an audience to gather feedback which i will then analyse and use to create our final treatment.
Idea Presentation and development: Treatment research
After presenting our groups idea to peers we realized that it was difficult to portray our idea to others verbally so in my next series of posts im going to research different ways of presenting and developing a film idea and then try and present our groups film idea in the same way. Im going to start by investigating Treatments.
Here is the Treatment for the film 'Terminator', a treatment is more like a novel than a script, this is not only because of the special format it uses, which i will be analysing and using to create my own treatment, it is because it tells the audience exactly what is happening but it tells us the location, time of day, the noises heard, the light angle and a lot of other things, they are very descriptive, this is used for presenting the idea to a producer or director much clearer than the initial idea as it allows them to visualise each shot in their head.
Terminator Treatment
At the start of each new scene/location, there are five lines orientated to the left of the page, these tell the reader the:
Here is the Treatment for the film 'Terminator', a treatment is more like a novel than a script, this is not only because of the special format it uses, which i will be analysing and using to create my own treatment, it is because it tells the audience exactly what is happening but it tells us the location, time of day, the noises heard, the light angle and a lot of other things, they are very descriptive, this is used for presenting the idea to a producer or director much clearer than the initial idea as it allows them to visualise each shot in their head.
Terminator Treatment
At the start of each new scene/location, there are five lines orientated to the left of the page, these tell the reader the:
- Era
- Exterior location (establishing shot)
- Interior/exterior location
- Time of day
- weather/lighting
These 5 lines immediately establish the shot and produce a clear visualisation inside the readers head allowing them to carry on reading without having to try and find this information themselves, it is an effective way of making reading easier but isn't ideal for novels.
The introduction of each new character is made by putting the character name in bold font, this shows the reader there is a new character without making them think and distracting them from the story, they want to be able to picture every shot in great detail without having to work to hard.
This research will help me to produce a professional looking treatment to then post to my blog in a later post which when i read out to an audience will hopefully be much easier to understand than the previous presentation of our idea.
Thriller Film Idea: Analysis of Feedback
Here is some analysis my group made of the feedback we received from peers, i have written the approximate time of the section we analyzed and some thought myself and my group have had on the comments made, we can use this feedback to make our film more satisfying for the audience and make it more believable, professional and effective:
2.40- 3.40 Josh highlights the point that we may be straying off thriller grounds and also that the idea sounds at first quite childish because of the 'evil' headmaster, after listening to this as a group we decided that to keep our film as 'Thriller' like as possible we had to ensure that we stuck to as many of the thriller conventions we chose to use as we could rather than straying into the very similar horror genre, after some research of existing horror media products, we found the conventions of horror included more blood and gore and the films were much more fictional and far fetched, we feel we can produce a believable thriller film without addressing our conventions to drastically. Josh's second point on the childish, 'evil' headmaster idea was later addressed by Sam and myself at 4.10 - 4.40.
2.40- 3.40 Josh highlights the point that we may be straying off thriller grounds and also that the idea sounds at first quite childish because of the 'evil' headmaster, after listening to this as a group we decided that to keep our film as 'Thriller' like as possible we had to ensure that we stuck to as many of the thriller conventions we chose to use as we could rather than straying into the very similar horror genre, after some research of existing horror media products, we found the conventions of horror included more blood and gore and the films were much more fictional and far fetched, we feel we can produce a believable thriller film without addressing our conventions to drastically. Josh's second point on the childish, 'evil' headmaster idea was later addressed by Sam and myself at 4.10 - 4.40.
During this, Josh also complimented us on our conventions we had challenged, we are hoping this can make our film more unique and appealing to the audience.
4.40 - 5.36 Sam Beckett questioned us on our timing of our film, asking wether or not we would be able to fit enough of the vital information into the 2 minute film. Lee told sam of our plan to use the first minute to establish the school environment and also show that the female teacher is new to the school and then to use the second minute to show that the children are not as normal as was first thought, we believe we can make the first 2 minutes of our film look believable, keep the audience interesting and also create the comfort, suspense and tension in the audience that we desire.
5.36 - 6.15 Jack gave us good inspiration with his advice on using 'nice' music while the children and head teacher are normal and using dark and suspicious music when they are in their trance-like state, this sound would be non-diegetic as Jack pointed out and would really reflect the emotions we are trying to create in these first 2 minutes.
6.30 - 7.10 Matt developed on one of lee's previous ideas of how to show that the female phycology teacher was new, lee said we could show the teacher talking to another teacher about her first day to show that she was new in response to a previous question, but matt advised that we could show her talking to the head teacher who would be pleasant and sociable to show the contrast between him and the trance-like state he would soon be in, this was good advice from matt as it created a more realistic scenario to show how the teacher was new and how to show the head-teacher to be nice under normal circumstances, we have planned to use Matt's idea in our final film.
7:10 - Josh C - Sub Genre's of the Film - Psychological, Mystery and Conspiracy.
8:20 - Mr Hood - Who is the Target Audience? - 18+ (people that have left school) this challenging the thriller convention.
Silent Bell ringing - Play a sound that only the audience can hear along with the audience being able to see the facial expressions of the characters.
9:39 - Mr Hood - Replay footage - Play different sounds when the footage is replayed.
10:04 - Mr Hood - Blackboard Jungle - Film example where a new teacher is introduced. I have watched a trailer for this film and the new teacher is walked over by the new kids so hopefully we can also show this inside the 2 minute time limit.
10:30 - Mr Hood - Difficult to in finding age difference's - Using students and teachers with a good age difference.
11:05 - Mr Hood - Mr Hood also brought up the problem of getting teachers and students on board - but members of our media group could star in our product.
11:50 - Pleasantville - A Black and white film where all the corrupt people turn into colour - This convention is being used in our films by having the brainwashed students although still wearing uniform being a lot smarter dressed.
13:05 - Matt W - Bell with flash maybe being used in Hoods room, associate flash with skits-co kids.
13:50 - Dean - Teacher packing up equipment, when she looks up the kids are all sitting up straight. - Possible use in our media product using the new teacher.
14:40 - Sam B - Do not use all students - In our media product we are planning to use just a couple of students in a classroom, this showing the possible brainwashing spreading amongst the students.
15:45 - Josh C - Shots being used - We will cover the shots being used when we create our storyboard, although we will use a lot of close-ups showing fear of characters.
16:45 - Dean - Reason for kids stopping late - this is unnecessary as we are only creating the 2 minute part of the film.
17:15 - Use of CCTV eg Paranormal Activity - Using this convention in the headmaster office so he is able to watch the kids that he has brainwashed.
7:10 - Josh C - Sub Genre's of the Film - Psychological, Mystery and Conspiracy.
8:20 - Mr Hood - Who is the Target Audience? - 18+ (people that have left school) this challenging the thriller convention.
Silent Bell ringing - Play a sound that only the audience can hear along with the audience being able to see the facial expressions of the characters.
9:39 - Mr Hood - Replay footage - Play different sounds when the footage is replayed.
10:04 - Mr Hood - Blackboard Jungle - Film example where a new teacher is introduced. I have watched a trailer for this film and the new teacher is walked over by the new kids so hopefully we can also show this inside the 2 minute time limit.
10:30 - Mr Hood - Difficult to in finding age difference's - Using students and teachers with a good age difference.
11:05 - Mr Hood - Mr Hood also brought up the problem of getting teachers and students on board - but members of our media group could star in our product.
11:50 - Pleasantville - A Black and white film where all the corrupt people turn into colour - This convention is being used in our films by having the brainwashed students although still wearing uniform being a lot smarter dressed.
13:05 - Matt W - Bell with flash maybe being used in Hoods room, associate flash with skits-co kids.
13:50 - Dean - Teacher packing up equipment, when she looks up the kids are all sitting up straight. - Possible use in our media product using the new teacher.
14:40 - Sam B - Do not use all students - In our media product we are planning to use just a couple of students in a classroom, this showing the possible brainwashing spreading amongst the students.
15:45 - Josh C - Shots being used - We will cover the shots being used when we create our storyboard, although we will use a lot of close-ups showing fear of characters.
16:45 - Dean - Reason for kids stopping late - this is unnecessary as we are only creating the 2 minute part of the film.
17:15 - Use of CCTV eg Paranormal Activity - Using this convention in the headmaster office so he is able to watch the kids that he has brainwashed.
Thriller Film Idea: initial idea feedback
Here is the feedback we received after presenting our film idea to an audience, i will analyse the feedback to highlight and correct the issues raised by the audience, this research will help us to refine our ideas, make our product more enjoyable and easier to understand for the audience and keep our film under the 'Thriller' genre.
Conventions of Thrillers: Use, Develop and Challenge.
There have been a lot of thriller films made yet every one seems to be different, we need our film to stand out from others too, yet we still need it to be part of the thriller genre, to keep it in this genre we need to use as many of the conventions in my mind map as possible but we need to develop and challenge other conventions to keep it original and interesting to the audience so our group has discussed the conventions we plan to use, develop and challenge. Here is the mind map i made of Thriller Conventions.
Our group has got together and discussed how we can use the conventions to create a short opening to the thriller film we picked in my last post, we listed conventions we could use, ones we could develop and most importanly ones we could challenge to give our thriller film an edge over others, to make it unique and most importanlty interesting to the thriller demographic, here are the lists we made:
Conventions to use:
Conventions to Develop:
Conventions to Challenge:
Conventions to use:
- High Pitched Violin Screeching
- Dark Locations / cloudy / overcast
- Smart Dress
- Violence
- Detective (school teacher investigating)
- Attractive Woman
- Footsteps
- Close-ups
Conventions to Develop:
- Using a mix of faster and slower editing to create tension rather than fast editing
- reducing the amount of shot-reverse-shot, have speech but camera panning away to show more significant items to audience
- Using short sounds of loud noise, shouting, crowds etc. and adding more silence to un-nerve audience
Conventions to Challenge:
- 'Bad Guy' will be School Children to create a sense of insecurity in the audience.
- Busy city will be a School instead
- Teachers, (normally inoccent) will be in control of 'brainwashed' children
- School bell ( normally good at end of lessons) will be the action to cause Children's trance
- No weapons
After this discussion we decided we should try to create a film which initially lures the audience into a false sense of security, the normally comforting surroundings of a school reveal a hidden secret, we would like to aim our film at over 18's who would have recently left school as they would reflect on good memories they had from school during the first introduction to the school in our film but when the secret is revealed and the more violent and dangerous content is unravelled, it would create a very emotional and interesting film, we would not show this content in our short clip we are going to produce as it is only the introduction and we want it to be suitable for under 18s considering its an A-level production.
This discussion helped our group to refine our idea and focus it more specifically on the thriller genre, i believe our group can now create a more appealing thriller film to the target audience we highlighted.
We also discussed what age-range we would be aiming our film at, we want it to appeal to young students and young adults who have recently left school as they will be the easiest to manipulate in the school environment, they will be reminiscing about past memories and that relaxed feeling of the school atmosphere would make the cliff-hangers and scary sections of our film more effective, so our age range is between 17 and 26.
These are the classifications that films are put into by the BBFC,
This discussion helped our group to refine our idea and focus it more specifically on the thriller genre, i believe our group can now create a more appealing thriller film to the target audience we highlighted.
We also discussed what age-range we would be aiming our film at, we want it to appeal to young students and young adults who have recently left school as they will be the easiest to manipulate in the school environment, they will be reminiscing about past memories and that relaxed feeling of the school atmosphere would make the cliff-hangers and scary sections of our film more effective, so our age range is between 17 and 26.
These are the classifications that films are put into by the BBFC,
We feel our film would be best suited to 15, it doesn't reduce our main target audience and stops young teenagers from seeing the more mature content.
Thriller film idea: initial ideas
While our group were together to discuss the conventions of thriller films we stared brainstorming some ideas of our own which could use, develop and challenge standard thriller conventions, here is the mind map of conventions i made.
During the group brainstorming everyone pitched differnet ideas, there were alot of different sub-genres and conventions to these ideas but all followed the main thriller genre, here are some of our ideas:
- A menatlly ill police man commits a murders subconciously and then investigates the case, only to discover it was himself who commited the crime, he then tries to pin the murder on a fellow police man, unsuccesfully. We thought this idea may be very difficult to achive, aquiring police uniforms, police locations and fitting enough information into the short clip we thought would be difficult to do. This idea was put forward by Lee Fraser and our group helped develop it. It uses alot of Thriller conventions.
- A school is training children to kill, we extended this idea further thinking about hypnosis from items such as school bells or school screensavers, we also thought of the teachers bieng in control of the pupils using the school bell. This idea is much more approprite, locations, props and costume would be very easy to aquire and there are lots of conventions which could be challenged with this idea. This idea was put forward by myself and the group developed it to this stage.
- Tom Fisher came up with the idea of having a Tree which could spread its roots throught the ground, breaking through the surface and taking people, this idea develops and challenges alot of thriller conventions but with no access to specialist special efects we doubted this film would look proffesionall enough or believable. Our group discussed these points to develop the idea further.
- Sam Clarke put the idea forward behind a film about a hanging incident, the effects and make up are possible for this idea but no one in or group could think of a believable story line to fit this idea into but it was a very good approach from sam as it challenged a lot of thriller conventions.
Out of these four ideas, our group came to the conclusion of using idea 2, we felt it was the easiest to produce but could be done to the most professional standard aswell. In my next post we discussed the conventions this film could use, develop and challenge and later we will present the idea to our peers to gather feedback and help improve our idea.
Film titles
In our preliminary task, our group created some very professional looking titles but they only related to our film because the text was in the colour yellow, here is some research into how to relate the the film titles to the film.
Here i have some examples of film titles, using these three clips and the trailers from my previous post i will compare and comment on them. This will benefit me when making my final product as it can help my work look more professional and make my titles more related to my product.
In all of my 6 clips the titles relate to the film they are from, In the 2 Fast 2 Furios clip of the Universal titles, the earth turns into a alloy wheel, this is whats called a graphic match and is a great introduction into the film, as the audience immediatly knows the film is about cars.
In the Harry Potter clip, the titles at the end of the trailer are made to look like grey stone work, this gives the film an alreay scary feel along with the lightning in the background, also the P is in the shape of Harry Potter's scar which relates it to this movie.
The Mask trailer has very bold titles, this comedic film is based around a green mask, the misshaped letters and composition makes the titles look funny and the green outline associates it to the film.
The Inception titles are also very clever, before seeing the titles, windows likely to be seen on skyscrapers in cities fly away from the screen and are odd shapes, this relates to the location of the film as it is in a busy city, next when the titles appear it is made up of the widows the audience saw flying past but the they are arranged to make the letters look like a maze, this relates to the maze like feel of the city.
In The Dark Knight trailer the titles fade in very faintly from a black background, this relates to the 'Dark' in the films title, this effect makes the film appear dark and mysetrious and gives the film a scary feel.
The Final clip of the Black Swan has pretty standard lettering, it is in black to reflect the films title but it is infornt of a background of feathers which can relate to the word 'Swan' in the name.
From my research i can see that there are many different ways to relate the titles to a film, it is possible to use the background, type face, effects and colour to give the film the impression the director wishes, I can now include proffesional looking titles onto my own final product using this research.
Here i have some examples of film titles, using these three clips and the trailers from my previous post i will compare and comment on them. This will benefit me when making my final product as it can help my work look more professional and make my titles more related to my product.
In all of my 6 clips the titles relate to the film they are from, In the 2 Fast 2 Furios clip of the Universal titles, the earth turns into a alloy wheel, this is whats called a graphic match and is a great introduction into the film, as the audience immediatly knows the film is about cars.
In the Harry Potter clip, the titles at the end of the trailer are made to look like grey stone work, this gives the film an alreay scary feel along with the lightning in the background, also the P is in the shape of Harry Potter's scar which relates it to this movie.
The Mask trailer has very bold titles, this comedic film is based around a green mask, the misshaped letters and composition makes the titles look funny and the green outline associates it to the film.
The Inception titles are also very clever, before seeing the titles, windows likely to be seen on skyscrapers in cities fly away from the screen and are odd shapes, this relates to the location of the film as it is in a busy city, next when the titles appear it is made up of the widows the audience saw flying past but the they are arranged to make the letters look like a maze, this relates to the maze like feel of the city.
In The Dark Knight trailer the titles fade in very faintly from a black background, this relates to the 'Dark' in the films title, this effect makes the film appear dark and mysetrious and gives the film a scary feel.
The Final clip of the Black Swan has pretty standard lettering, it is in black to reflect the films title but it is infornt of a background of feathers which can relate to the word 'Swan' in the name.
From my research i can see that there are many different ways to relate the titles to a film, it is possible to use the background, type face, effects and colour to give the film the impression the director wishes, I can now include proffesional looking titles onto my own final product using this research.
Conventions of Thrillers: existing products research
Here are 3 Trailers for Thriller Films, Inception, The Dark Knight and Black Swan
Below i have created a mind map of Thriller Conventions and i believe the three thriller trailers above show these characteristics strongly but due to the different sub-genre of each piece a lot of conventions can be challenged or developed , conventions are the characteristics and typical contents of a specific genre of media, I have split these conventions into:
- Characters
- Costume
- Music/sound
- Dialogue
- Shot type
- Props
- Locations
- Lighting
- Miss en Scene
Here is the mind-map i have created:
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| Conventions of Thriller Films |
Thrillers: examples
I have done some research into existing thriller films so that our group can either talk about thriller films we have watched or watch some films together and talk about the characteristics and conventions we spot.
The highest rated 'Thriller' films acording to IMDB are :
These 10 films are all Thriller films but there are several different sub-genres such as Godfather is a crime thriller, The Dark Knight is a supernatural thriller, both are very different but both fall under the Thriller genre. All of our groups members have watched at least two of these films and so already have good knowledge of Thriller films, we are going to collect a few short examples of thriller films that follow the conventions we believe thriller films should have and then record these conventions and others we notice onto our blogs. This research into examples of thriller films has given our group a clearer vision of what a thriller film should look like as we all have experiences of watching them and now knowing that they are thrillers we can reflect on these experiences and use them to make our final product a more focused thriller.
The highest rated 'Thriller' films acording to IMDB are :
- The Godfather
- Elite Squad
- The Godfather: Part 2
- Inception
- Pulp Fiction
- The Dark Knight
- Black Swan
- Fight Club
- Goodfellas
- Rear Window
These 10 films are all Thriller films but there are several different sub-genres such as Godfather is a crime thriller, The Dark Knight is a supernatural thriller, both are very different but both fall under the Thriller genre. All of our groups members have watched at least two of these films and so already have good knowledge of Thriller films, we are going to collect a few short examples of thriller films that follow the conventions we believe thriller films should have and then record these conventions and others we notice onto our blogs. This research into examples of thriller films has given our group a clearer vision of what a thriller film should look like as we all have experiences of watching them and now knowing that they are thrillers we can reflect on these experiences and use them to make our final product a more focused thriller.
Thrillers: genre and sub-genre research
I have researched the thriller genre and it's sub-genres so i can gain a better understanding of the contents/characteristics of thriller media.
Thriller is a genre of media that uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements. The majority of thriller media is targeted at adults and teenagers as the content can often be scary and upsetting for younger audiences. This genre is mostly famous in movies by Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino but each director uses a seperate sub-genre of thrillers to make thier movies unique, a sub genre uses the main conventions of a genre and then challenges them in differnt ways to produce a new and unique style of movie, there are many different sub-genres of thriller such as:
These are jus a few of the many sub-genres there are, Crime thrillers will take the main conventions of thrillers but challenge them and introduce a crime aspect, by combining the two, the film has a much wider target audience.
This research can help me produce a much more focused thriller film, and i can now try and include the suspense, tension and excitement aspects into my initial ideas to develop them further, i will meet with my group at a later date to discuss the initial ideas that have been circulating to discuss the product we will ultimately produce.
Thriller is a genre of media that uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements. The majority of thriller media is targeted at adults and teenagers as the content can often be scary and upsetting for younger audiences. This genre is mostly famous in movies by Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino but each director uses a seperate sub-genre of thrillers to make thier movies unique, a sub genre uses the main conventions of a genre and then challenges them in differnt ways to produce a new and unique style of movie, there are many different sub-genres of thriller such as:
- Conspiracy thriller
- Crime thriller
- Disaster thriller
- Political thriller
- Physchological thriller
- Supernatuaral thriller
These are jus a few of the many sub-genres there are, Crime thrillers will take the main conventions of thrillers but challenge them and introduce a crime aspect, by combining the two, the film has a much wider target audience.
This research can help me produce a much more focused thriller film, and i can now try and include the suspense, tension and excitement aspects into my initial ideas to develop them further, i will meet with my group at a later date to discuss the initial ideas that have been circulating to discuss the product we will ultimately produce.
Thrillers: initial research
For part of the AS media studies course, my group is required to create a media product on a specific genre, this creates a very wide range of possibilities, our group had decided from the very start to do the film industry and create a short introduction to a film as we have a lot of very professional equipment to use such as HD cameras, Tripods, 3 point lighting, editing software for both visual and audio content, etc. but our group had a hard decision deciding on the genre we would be working towards. There are many different genres and here are a few:
The first thing i researched was the demographic that thriller films were aimed at, this would give me a good starting point as i know immediatly what audience thriller media is aimed at.
After searching the internet on sites such as IMDB and Wikipedia i felt that Thriller media as a genre is aimed at mainly males between the ages of 18 and late 50's, i felt this because most thriller films are rated 18 and are not suitable to people under this age because of the gory and scary content. I believe these films are targeted at people no older than 65, they are very modern and mentally challenging which may be unsuitable for very old audiences.
Our group have chosen to follow the thriller genre following this research as we feel we can produce a very high quality and imaginative film and can target it at this demographic and produce a focused thriller film which can attract this audience.
- Action
- Adventure
- Comedy
- Historical
- Horror
- Science Fiction
Our group did some very brief research into the favorite genres according to the IMDB and decided to choose the 'Thriller' genre to use in our final product, its lack of special effects, low amount of characters and complex storylines makes it ideal for our final product, we don't have the equipment to create to extreme special effects and have no money to spend producing our film so a thriller film sounded ideal, also the complex storylines means we can still be imaginative in creating our film as we are all big fans of thriller films, yet still keep it low budget. Here is some further research i have done investigating the thriller genre and sub-genres to investigate its suitability for our project.
The first thing i researched was the demographic that thriller films were aimed at, this would give me a good starting point as i know immediatly what audience thriller media is aimed at.
After searching the internet on sites such as IMDB and Wikipedia i felt that Thriller media as a genre is aimed at mainly males between the ages of 18 and late 50's, i felt this because most thriller films are rated 18 and are not suitable to people under this age because of the gory and scary content. I believe these films are targeted at people no older than 65, they are very modern and mentally challenging which may be unsuitable for very old audiences.
Our group have chosen to follow the thriller genre following this research as we feel we can produce a very high quality and imaginative film and can target it at this demographic and produce a focused thriller film which can attract this audience.
Preliminary Task
After our group was formed, we were given the task to produce a short film which included these 4 components:
Our group watched the final product together and here are our views on it :
- A match on action. (person walking through door)
- At least two lines of dialogue.
- A shot-reverse-shot.
- Introductory titles and end-credits.
Here is our final product 'The Yellow Car'
ATLaS Media Productions was formerly SALT media Productions.
Our group watched the final product together and here are our views on it :
- We felt that we completed the aims to a very high standard with very impressive titles, a good transition on the match on action and a very consistent shot reverse shot.
- We felt that although the panning looked smooth, it could still be improved if it didn't have the change in pace, we will try other techniques and also practice with this equipment again soon so we can develop our skills in film production.
- We noticed a slight jump between two shots and think that no further training in the editing software is needed just a greater attention to detail.
- We all felt we worked well as a team and co-operated well to produce this final product.
This preliminary task shows our groups current skills and qualities in film production, when compared to our final product later in the course our group will be able to see the progress and development we have made over the duration of the project, also this task showed that we are able to work as a group to produce an impressive final product, i have highlighted areas we must improve and develop our skills in and by addressing these issues it can help us to produce a final product of much higher quality and develop our skills in the film industry. Our groups next step is to experiment with new filming techniques and practice and improve the techniques we have already used.
Blog Aims
Throughout the duration of my 'AS' media studies course, i will be presenting a lot of work onto this blog, my aims for this blog are:
And also :
- To show the development of my skills and understanding of professional techniques used in the film industry.
- To show the thought process when creating a film.
- To show the development of a film from the initial idea to the final product.
- To present research,planning, tasks and other work that myself or my group has produced.
- To present my groups final introduction to a 'Thriller' film that we researched, planned, filmed and edited together.
And also :
- To show these previous points professionally, clearly and with creative flair and attention to detail.
At the end of my blog i will create an evaluation of how i feel i have met these aims and also the effectiveness of presenting this work on a blog, I will also gather feedback from others as this evaluation will enhance my 'blogging' skills in the future by highlighting areas of improvement.
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