My group thriller “Snatched” was primarily inspired by 4 films, Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock 1960), The Third Man (Carol Reed 1949), This is England (Shane Meadows 2006) and Witness (Peter Weir 1985). The mise-en-scene displayed via The Third Man with it's post-war Vienna setting provides the audience with a gritty and dark atmosphere as well as adding a level of tension to the shots, likewise This is England, even though not a thriller, employs a similar approach with a poor urban setting adding the same feeling as The Third Man while also adding a level of realism to the film. This provides a connection to the audience allowing them to relate to the characters involved via it's location. For this reason we decided to take on the convention and decided to have our location as a run-down car park, thereby bringing across the unglamorous location and the vulnerable feeling of our female victim Grace.
The image above is showing a scene from Snatched where grace, the female victim, has been shut into the boot of Tom's car. This is developing the convention of vulnerability displayed by many thriller films via claustrophobic space, our prime inspiration for this scene was via the film Witness. We realised that by employing a point of view shot rather than having an array of shots similar to Witness on the small Amish boy we'd allow a larger connection to the situation Grace was in. Then by adding in cross-fade affects we also showed the damaging affects of the drugs on Grace and her ability to act.
Furthermore we decided to follow the similar line of The Third Man again with it's large range of tilt shots, close ups and medium shots to provide a general feeling of unease and tension throughout our opening scene, likewise we tried to follow a similar lighting scheme via the gloomy surrounding area.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our thriller production represents primarily two contradicting pictures of a female character, from the unsuspecting victim Grace to the calculating villain Mary. We present Grace as the traditional representation of a female character, which is vulnerable to the events unfolding before them, as seen in Psycho via Marion Crane. Where as Mary is shown as a calculating villain, not necessarily a strong woman but someone who looks out for themselves, this challenges the traditional representation through and through, and provides a nice counter balance to the other extreme.
The other character shown in the opening Tom, is displayed as a the stereotypical male villain, the one in control with all the cards in his hand via having better standard of clothing to having the car which Mary relies on. This is also a traditional representation of a male character as shown through Psycho via such characters as Sam Loomis.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I would think that Snatched would most likely be distributed by ourselves than a company, at least to begin with, due to it being created by complete unknowns within the industry, while also being in competition with 1000s of other films created in the same means all over the country. Plus due to high costs of distribution we would most likely ignore trying to get it shown within a Multiplex cinema or even an Art House, we'd use modern day technologies instead.
Like many other films we would have to rely on word of mouth to get us off the floor, to do this we would distribute the film via social networking sites as well as streaming sites such as Youtube, Bebo, Facebook and other vacillates thereby hoping to attract the attention of a real company via the amount of audience viewings. So by putting it online we would enable 1000s to view our movie quickly and easily while also having practically no cost to distribute it at all while also providing the means of spreading it via the word of mouth by easily providing the ability to put the film onto such devices as an Ipod, Nintendo DS or even your phone via different encoding.
If we were successful in gaining a large following / fan base we could then approach a small distribution company such as Warp Films and provide evidence of an interested audience as well as showing many links to their own supported film This is England which was a huge success and argue Snatched could be as well if given the chance. However due to already being available on the internet for free we would most likely ignore DVD and try to have a TV airing instead thereby earning money via advertising.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The primary audience for Snatched is the demographic 18-25 who enjoy off beat thrillers because female audiences will be attracted to the 2 extreme pictures of the female personality displayed via Grace and Mary, one vulnerable and weak while the other in control. Likewise the male audience would be attracted to Tom's stake in the goings on of the film and whether he was truly in control or he was actually doing the wishes of Mary.
I would expect the social class to be around the middle class such as the demographic C1 and C2 due to Snatched not being a overly complex film yet also not being as easy to understand as a stop sign which provides intrigue to the audience. This would provide both the University educated student and the blue collar worker something to think about during the film hooking them to watch it to the end to find out what happens.
How did you attract/address your audience?
The audience have been attracted to our film via it's intriguing title 'Snatched' and the concept of a drug addict selling out her friend to a male drug dealer. The audience would also first be attracted due to the film being free and available to watch when ever you want online. This would also hopefully increase the rate of word to mouth promoting the film further attracting a large audience.
Other reasons the audience may be attracted to the film is the location of Norwich, many viewers will watch the film just because it is filmed where the live. Likewise due to having the concept of kidnapping and drug dealing at the front of the film many viewers will be attracted to sit down and see how it plays out for the character Grace.
If we look at the questionnaire we carried out on some year 12 and 13 media students we also found that many of them of the age of 16-18 were attracted to the film due to it's cliffhanger opening and impressive audio with the large impact of the sirens.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of construction this product?
Throughout this project I have learnt a wide range of skills from understanding how to use the camera and it's varying functions as well as understanding the key importance of using the tripod for a steady affect, otherwise our film would more likely cause motion sickness than entertain the audience. We also learned due to our first attempt at creating a thriller that you must thoroughly plan the camera shots if you wish to provided a variety otherwise you may find yourself with 90% of the shots all being medium thereby lowering the impact of the action onto the audience.
When we edited the project I learnt how to use Adobe Premier Elements, while this program is very basic compared to its big brother Adobe Premier CS4 it does provide some very useful functions such as cross dissolve, dip to black and the ability to export the video into any format we wish. Thanks to the cross dissolve and dip to black we could add more impact to our thriller production, a prime example is when Grace is locked in the boot and has the affect of the drugs in her system, we were able to add in a cross dissolve affect to bring across her vulnerability in that situation by making a blurred affect.
I also learnt that if you wish to keep the audience hooked you must keep the film simple enough to follow but complex enough to keep interesting, otherwise they may grow bored, I feel we did this by employing a simple linear narrative which answers many questions but also leaves many more unanswered.
Finally we learnt during the construction of our product that speed is of an essence, and we found that the school computers were sometimes not up to the task and would operate very slowly compared to our own personal computers, for this reason we learned a great deal of patience and understood when it was our own fault for the program operating slowly or the computer itself being outdated.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
The preliminary task enabled me to understand better how our group would work, I found it very pleasant in the way we all contributed throughout both projects, however we found that planning was key to it all. Without planning all we had was waffle. During our preliminary task we got to know each other a bit better and gauge each others weaknesses and strengths, I found quite clearly that both Lauren and Emily were far better at acting than I was, it especially helped that Lauren is doing a Drama A-level letting her bring a theatrical perspective to the production.
During the preliminary task I found that keeping on the 180degree line rule was key, otherwise you could seriously confuse the audience thereby making the task a waste of time and energy! The shooting the first time round went wrong due to miscommunication, however after putting our heads together and due to Lauren's quick thinking we were able to salvage the small amount of time we had to produce another 15 minutes of good footage.
The responsibilities throughout were well spread out, I stepped down from an acting role in our first production thriller idea and then directed the camera instead on our second idea and took many shot. The acting throughout was done by Emily Mullender and Lauren Jordan, both members of my group, who did it extremely well regardless of having to lie on a freezing cold car park roof.
Throughout editing both tasks we found it the sound a tricky situation due to having a large amount of background noise however by changing the volume settings we were able to turn down the volume enough that the background noise was noticeable but not bothersome yet you could still hear the dialogue or music clearly. We also found that audio played a huge part in bringing across the message of the scene, if you had upbeat it may not look as terrible as you wish it be thereby damaging the overall mise-en-scene.
Overall throughout the entire course I feel we worked well as a group and we handled our blunders and success with equal skill and thought and that the end results were what we wanted. The primarily task ticked all the correct boxes and our thriller production was just that, a thriller.
1 comment:
Proficient technical understanding and understanding of new media technolgies; conceptual understanding and ability to interpret film language remains basic and lacking confidence.
Overall Level 3: 13/20
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