Luke Graham Evaluation

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

To create our thriller we used conventions which are common to the thriller genre and developed a few of these conventions to increase effect and to make the piece more original; which would ensure our target audience yet remain interesting and unique in its own way.
Upon researching thrillers (seen throughout the blog) we noticed the enigma code to be one of the most common and most important conventions used by filmmakers to heighten suspense and mystery within the narrative; so we decided to construct the sequence as if it were ultimately the final scene of the feature length film. Beginning the sequence with the opening titles intercut with a character hurriedly running through the woods instantly conjures up ideas and questionings amongst the audience; who is he? What is the purpose of his running? Where is he running to? Which is similarly achieved in The Bourne Identity (2002, Doug Liman); not much is known about the characters and their purpose. Using restricted narration we were able to evoke feelings of sympathy and mystery (again increasing this sense of enigma); the audience witnesses the characters realisation of his brothers dead body for the first time at the same time as the character acquires this knowledge of his brothers death, no knowledge of the brothers fate is given to the audience up until that point, this shocks the audience and makes them empathise with the protagonist. Our use and development of this convention seemed successful, evidenced through peer feedback, and aided greatly in the excitement and suspense of our piece.
The mood and atmosphere of our sequence was achieved by our use of mise en scene; elements similarly constructed in successful thriller films. The majority of the scenes were shot in low key using natural lighting and reflected the look of such films as Se7en and The Usual Suspects; however our attempts at using light reflectors were repeatedly halted due to poor weather conditions and a lack of spotlights, this was picked up by our peers as they mentioned a few of the shots seemed too dark and lacked visibility, a correction that would be made if given the task again. Costume, make-up and hair remained natural as we decided on making the characters seem as realistic and as believable as possible; attempting to heighten our desired sense of gritty realism (reported in our blog). In pre-production the setting seemed to be a vital part of our sequence; setting most of the action in the middle of the woods would have created a sense of loneliness and isolation, which puts the character of the brother in an even deeper state of danger as there is no one nearby to help him, which we achieved successfully and focused the audiences attention directly onto the characters on screen and their relationship with one another (which seemed very important as this was the opening of the film). I believe that the kidnappers sense of power and control over the brother, and their importance of their role in the overall narrative, was easily distinguishable throughout our opening; their body language, facial expressions and posture gave off feelings of aggression within the kidnappers, clearly the antagonists because of our use of this convention, and feelings of despair and a want of escape within the captured brother. The majority of thrillers have a soundtrack or ambient sound playing throughout the majority of the film that reflects the mood of the scenes; however we challenged this convention by including a few scenes which the sound was solely diagetic, to further the gritty realism in which we were trying to achieve and to greaten suspense (similarly done in the opening scene of Mission Impossible 3), and resulted in sequences which kept the audience on the edge of their seats.



How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our opening we wanted to represent the characters relationships with each other and to define the roles of protagonist and antagonist very clearly to simplify it for the audience and to set up the rest of the films narrative (if it were made into a feature). To represent the struggle between the characters of the captured brother and the two kidnappers we chose to include shaky hand-held camerawork and a faster pace of cuts to reflect the pace of the action and reflect the aggression felt amongst the kidnappers. Also, incorporating a crescendo of ambient sound near the final moments of the sequence heightened this tension.
The character types we have used are common stereotypes of antagonists and protagonists present in thrillers; the kidnappers are shown to be of an aggressive nature and clearly have more power than the brother whereas the brother is portrayed as weaker yet strong willed and has the sympathy from the target audience because of this. During the scene where the brother is soaked in petrol we decided to incorporate a few moments of hesitation in the character of Junior (the kidnapper who rips the tape off of the brother’s mouth) so as to add more diversity to the characters and to make the lead kidnapper seem more dislikeable in comparison (backed up by the birds-eye-view shot of him aggressively pouring petrol over the captured brother).
The leading characters are from a working class background (as our film revolves around ‘postcode’ gang warfare) and their body language, cursing, and accents portray this; although, to add a touch of irony and to grab the audiences attention we decided that the end of the scene would consist of the two opposing characters reciting the ‘Lords Prayer’. This allowed for the final word spoken by the lead kidnapper to be ‘Amen’ which finished the opening effectively and originally.

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

We would use Pathe Films (www.pathe.co.uk) to distribute our film as they are a well know film distributor and they are based in the UK; they produce a lot of low-budget British films, in many cases thrillers, such as Big Nothing, Crash and Memento. They would be the ideal company to distribute our film successfully and aim the advertisement at our target audience.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience we aimed our product at were 16-24 year old males; most likely to have enjoyed films such as Snatch and Memento (both of which made up to £30,000,000; www.boxofficemojo.com). We believe we would make the majority of our profit from that age group as they own the ‘leisure pound’ (disposable income) and are responsible for the majority of box office sales.

How did you attract/address your audience?

As mentioned throughout the blog we used a variety of conventions that would attract our target audience; the ‘MTV-style’ of camerawork is appealing to the younger audiences, clearly shown by the recent success of Danny Boyles Slumdog Millionaire, as it keeps the interest and attention of the audience. The issues of kidnap and revenge and the themes of brotherhood and loss are of common interest to the target audience and will be able to connect and empathise with the characters; resulting in a more emotive and engaging cinematic experience.

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

During the post production we used Final Cut Pro and GarageBand to edit image and sound together successfully and effectively; using parallel editing and fading audio into one another we were able to create continuity and improve the flow of the sequence. Also, after talking as a group I used Adobe After Effects to create the titles. I think we worked effectively as a group during the editing process although certain individuals put more of an input in than the others. I’ve learnt a lot during the editing process and how to construct moving image and sound to evoke feelings and ideas.

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

Through the development of the preliminary task and improving into the foundation portfolio I’ve learnt how to construct thriller conventions successfully and aim them at my target audience; I believed that as a group we were very successful in our preliminary sequence and already had a great deal of knowledge about moving image and thrillers, my groups construction and development of the foundation portfolio improved our skills and increased our filmmaking knowledge, and has given us more of a respect for the thriller genre.