Dan Shambrook Evaluation

Evaluation

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

One of the major aspects of thrillers is suspense. Without the audience this feeling a thriller cannot work. One of the techniques used to raise this is the enigma code. The enigma code is a word given to the way in a film raises questions in the audiences mind. We took used our story line to create this, in our opening we see two characters build up to the same event. The questions we want to raise are, why is Joe’s character running? Who is he and what relationship does he have with Dan’s character? What has Dan’s character done? Who is Dan’s character? And who are the men that kill him?

Another common convention of thrillers is the use or either restricted or unrestricted narration. With restricted narration the audience shares the experience with the characters involved, they know as much as the characters within the film. With this technique directors can create shock. We didn’t want that. We wanted our audience to fell suspense and therefore went with unrestricted. Conventionally this would mean the audience know more than the characters and this is how the suspense is achieved. We went against this idea. From our piece the audience knows less than the characters, the suspense is created and makes the audience want to know what’s happening.

Again part of the enigma with our piece we wanted to make it unclear who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist. The protagonist is the character that the story is told through, this person could be good or bad, and the antagonist is the character that opposes them. This creates a binary opposition, when the two characters collide. Within our piece there is a clear binary opposition. We want the audience to become attached to Dan’s character, this is achieved with his contact with Joe, the only character seen to be not associated with the murder. With this bond between the audience and Dan; Junior and Jonty become the characters the audience go against. This will create surprise further in the film when it becomes clear Dan is not a particularly nice character himself.

In most thrillers low key lighting is used to create a harsh tone and deeper shadows, this breaks the smoothness within characters faces and gives a dark feel to the piece. I wanted to do this with our piece to enhance the viewing experience however the equipment we needed was not available to us through college given the location we were shooting in. To get the lighting effect I wanted we would have needed a studio set or battery powered light. After looking at the first set or rushes it became clear that our piece was equally as effective with natural lighting as it gave the piece an essence of realism making it even more thrilling. We did have the issue on the reshoot that lighting was slightly different but we overcame this with a homemade reflector made with tin foil, this wasn’t used much but did assist when it came to shooting some of the close ups.

The setting of the film itself was key, we needed access to a place with a car park, and that could look desolated to create the thriller effect, the location we used had enough open space to not interfere with the camera work and still provide the look we needed. Shooting in the woods can be difficult as positioning of the sun coming through the trees has a massive effect of how shadows fall and the light available to us. In order to get around this we shot in order of events, contrast in light then become deliberate and the broken narrative can become obvious.


We wanted all the costumes and props to be as real as possible, after research we decided on a costume to suit character and assist in the development process. We wanted the audience to understand what their seeing is real and therefore used everyday clothing. The props we needed, car was provided with the casting, we cast a driver therefore we could use his car. And the petrol can was bought. In our first day of shooting we showed the three male characters walking of, however in the next shot of them we needed a petrol can, to avoid a severe continuity disruption we added a scene in which dialogue explains they forgot it and go back. Costume and props simple and effective.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The characters we wished to represent are the youth gang culture. In particular late teen white British males the ages of our actors ranged from 17-18 to achieve this. The three main characters in our piece represent the struggle to break free from bad circles. Most of the victim is shot from a high angle, this assists in showing he is the weak and frail of the three and to some extent the innocent. His innocence is also achieved through dialogue, a strained, desperate voice whilst reciting the Lord’s Prayer gives the audience the idea he is a victim of unprovoked abuse. Later in the film we would find this not to be the case.

The second character is shown to be cocky and a bit of a suck up to the other antagonist, most of his dialogue is directed at him showing no real attachment to the victim, we also see him to be hesitant towards what he is doing, this is shown best through a powerful shot in which a fade to white leaves the shape of him with his arms behind his head in regret.

The third, the antagonist of the sequence is very in your face, achieved with a few close ups and a very personal and aggressive relationship with the protagonist. Sound also assists this as some of his lines are distorted to make him seem inhumane, adding the thriller genre.

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

The distribution company we would use would be one of British base. A major distribution company such a Lionsgate could be ideal as it is known to have success with films of a horror/thriller genre. Some examples of this would be the Saw series. Lionsgates marketing device with use of giant billboards with just the film title really worked to raise awareness and anxiety for the films release. Another advantage of our film is that is has representation of British culture this would assist us in getting funding from companies like the BFC (British film council) who have set rules as to who and why they fund films. With there backing it would become easier to get distributors and then the funding to produce more marketing techniques. A major advantage of Lionsgate is that it is a UK based American distributor, therefore we would be able to have international release furthering our audience worldwide.

In an ideal situation we would be a 1st party production company, this means we would produce the film then seeks for distribution. This is because we want to have full rights to our own film, no distributers having any input on the creative process of the piece. A good example of this way of production working is Newline cinema and their co-operation with snakes on a plane, everything about this film was built on fandom and without institution interference gained a huge fan base. We would seek marketing advice from the distributers producing billboards, and taking advantage of the internet. We would hope that through word of mouth, fandom would rise releasing podcasts, blogs, fan film and trailers. We could take this and put out invites to meet the cast and come to premiers to the fans that raise the most awareness for our film.

Who would be the audience for your media product and how do you attract them?
I feel if we were to produce the rest of the film we may have scenes of a sexual nature and severe violence therefore the BBFC would most likely class our film as an 18. This would have a massive effect on our audience’s age pushing it to around 18-24.


I feel we would attract audiences from different social classes, the working class may see our film and have a closer relationship with the characters. The film may touch on events they have come across in their lives and so they would see it in a more personal way. The middle class I think would also watch it, their enjoyment would come from prejudice as they would become enjoy watching someone in a lower state of class and become fascinated by the difference in life style.

Other themes dealt with in our film would appeal to a female audience with romance and family being major themes in our film. The film would have many sub genres and hybrids similar to ‘bullet boy’ Women may be attracted to the issues raised on family and love and therefore also be attracted to it.

To summaries our audience would be dominantly 18-24 British males of lower and lower middle class.

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

On a personal level I have always felt comfortable with lighting and cinematography. My knowledge of editing has improved as I have always had great difficulty when it comes to creating atmosphere and narrative through more than just simple cuts.

The knowledge I feel I have had from previous productions and courses surrounding film production have given me a great advantage coming into this production and I feel I have applied my skills to the best of my ability. The thing that I have discovered to be most helpful in the process is Luke’s way of directing. Whereas in the past I, myself have done a shot, moved on. Luke went back, and shot each scene over and over again from lots of angles and shot sizes giving us great opportunities when it came to the editing process.

The one piece of technology I hadn’t visited before this production was Garage Band. I found this piece of software brilliant as it allowed us to do more with sound than new ever have before. I gave the change to incorporate Foley work and great our own sounds. It really enhanced the piece and gave us the opportunity to make every element our own.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Time management and organisation. The preliminary was easy to organise and nothing really could go wrong. Shooting in college meant that we could always reshoot in frees if we didn’t like the look of something. It also meant we didn’t have to rely too much on bringing things in or travel, whereas shooting on a location took weeks to organise and we still got it wrong. The first day we went to shoot we forgot the petrol can, and due to lack of light we could afford to take time out to get it. Actors had to be home by certain times so we had to shoot fast. We had to organise a second shoot day. Having done it before the second day went better.

The most important thing I learnt during the progression is the amount of time and planning it takes just to produce a small 3 minute piece, taking this knowledge into further projects I feel I will be able o produce at an even higher standard.

Another thing I have learnt is that our group works well together, I was glad I didn’t change who I worked with as we all got on and decided on roles together.

words: 1976