Psychological Thriller Opening Sequence

EvaluationFeaturing questions 2, 3, 5 and 6.

How does your media product represent

particular social groups?

Question 2

The social group our opening sequence represents is adults. This is because our opening sequence is a psychological thriller which is shown within the sound we have used within our opening sequence. This is because the sound we have used was a piano sound, which is being played slowly and creepily giving off a eerie atmosphere and gives our audience the impression that something bad is going to happen. The sound we used is a non-diegetic sound because the sound is coming from outside of the scene. Since the use of sound is scary, this would represent our audience adults because it is thought out that typically if you're an adult you're not scared like you were as a child, so you are able to handle scary topics more than a child would as an adult, which is how the use of sound represents adults.

The location is another way that we chose to represent our audience. There is red paint on the tree which shows a kind of blood idea. This is why the location represents our social groups, because since our audience is adults, they understand symbolism a lot more than children would, and they would understand more that red represents danger, so the use of mise en scene from the red paint on the tree, would represent our social group, adults as they understand more than children would. Although our use of mise en scene for the costumes of our characters would been seen to be in trend to teenagers, which would show that the costumes would represent teenagers more than adults, although we were trying to portray the characters of adults, so this shows that we should pay attention to the costumes that we make our characters wear, for example more smart casual clothing as the timeline of adults would be to typically get a job and work, so having smart casual clothing would represent work attire and represent our social group, adults.

The mise en scene of the actions that the female photographer character would represent our social group adults, because typically becoming an adult would link to independence and standing on your own, which our photographer did, as she was by herself, she didn't as for help from anyone and this shows off an independent representation of our social group adults.

We chose to represent the social group adults because the type of opening sequence we created was a psychological thriller which isn‟t suited for children this is because later on in the film there will be a murder happening. Another example to our opening sequence representing our social group adults is by the use of our camera shots. One of the shots we have used within our opening sequence is a crab shot; this shot can indicate someone following a person therefore this shot shows the audience that someone potentially could be following them which makes the audience edgy and upbeat this is why adults are our social group we have chosen because of the affects we have used could scare younger children. Another camera shot we have used is an extreme close up of Phoebe‟s eyes showing depth, and shows that Phoebe who plays the photographer, looks like she can see everything although she cannot, which children wouldn‟t understand the meaning to, which is why this technique has been used within our opening sequence to represent our social group adults as they understand the deep meaning to our use of camera angles/shots than a child would.

The camera moves forwards and backwards to show the photo book in the Darkroom using the red safety light which makes the audience wonder what is happening and what is in the photo book. This represents our social group adults as the lighting is dark and creepy which children would not like as typically they are scared of dark scary things.

The mise en scene represents the atmosphere for each scene. This was done by in a happy scene it shows the two characters walking and by their facial expression and what they were wearing indicates that they are going to be the innocent targets later on in the film. This is also shown by the extreme close up on Phoebe‟s eyes as this shows that she is going to be the character that is going to be after the two characters. All of this is shown by mise en scene. Children would not understand why the photographer is standing there, whereas our social group, adults would understand that the photographer is bad news and that the two 'targets' are possibly in danger.

The editing throughout the opening sequence raises the tension making it more of a pulse rising moment. This increases the tension and shows that a child probably shouldn‟t be watching this, which is why this is more fit for our social group adults.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and

why?

Question 3

The ways in which our media product belongs to the British film industry is that our media product has British actors, which would mean that our media product would be part of the British film industry because it has British actors in our media product, which typically a British media product would have, British actors.

The location is in Britain, which would mean that because we used a British location, thic would mean that our media product would belong in the British film industry because, the location shows a British setting, and show a lifestyle of a British person.

Our media product is of a low budget. Typically, British media products are of a low budget, meaning that our media product belongs to the British film industry because of it's low budget.Since we have British actors, and that we have filmed in a British location, this would appeal to our British audience as they could relate to the setting and surroundings perhaps of our media product‟s location that we filmed.

Our niche audience would be for people who are over 18, because it would target over 18s. Our actual media product story line is not so in a way educational to our audience, nor does it have much of a moral statement about British culture, but our media product does show possible surroundings of a British location such as the field that we filmed at, as you can see graffiti in the background, which we have quite a few in Britain.

We researched some British studios, and we found that Hammer Studios might take on the production and distribution of our film, and this is because this studio does this sort of thriller/horror like genres.

The ways in which our media product could be distributed is by advertising it by putting up posters and leaflets. If we could afford to do otherwise, we could advertise the trailer of our media product through TV and the cinema. All these techniques to market our media product would be able to reach our audience, because our audience age is 18 plus and this is the age where people go out a lot, so they would be able to see our advertisements for our media product.

Hollywood would not be interested in our media product because we do not have famous, well-known actors in our media product, also we have an extremely low budget for our media product, whereas Hollywood would be more interested in films with a higher budget. Also we do not use professional CGIs, and Hollywood would want a more professional CGI in a media product.Warner Bros. and MGM would not distribute our media product because the actors and the producer are not well known people. Therefore Warner Bros and MGM wouldn‟t want anything to do with something that isn‟t already established in the business at the moment. Plus the features inside the opening sequence haven‟t been professionally done because of the low budget of our media product.

How did you attract/address your

audience?

Question 5

The opening sequence „Blinded‟ that our group have created appeals to the target audience that we set of 18+ because of the way it has been set out. The background music which we have implemented onto the opening sequence makes the audience feel curious as to what is going to occur next, this is relevant to the target audience we have set of 18+ because anyone under this age will not be suited to what will be happening within the movie overall as a murder will be occurring. In addition to the intense background music we have in place the opening sequence has frequent outbreaks of fast flashes now and then with regular cut-backs which go onto Phoebe‟s (Phoebe as Stacy Jones) eyes and the dark room where the blind photographer was actively working – this is relevant to the audience we provided because this increasingly raises the tension and curiosity. Another way „Blinded‟ (our opening sequence) appeals to our target audience is the way all of the sound effects have been implemented onto the opening sequence which keeps the audience active, up to beat and refrain them from falling asleep whilst watching because they will be curiously wondering what is going to be happening next within the sequence of events. This point is relevant to the target audience set because even though they may not be scared during this point in time of the opening sequence they will be interestingly awaiting to see what will be happening within the opening sequence. This adds into effect with the frequent flash backs in place which are intense and straight to the point, with the dramatic scene changes in place this builds the audience‟s attention which have been well composed together making it relevant to the 18+ age group set as our target audience. „Blinded‟ would not be relevant to people not in this age group because the movie wouldn‟t be suitable for children because unfortunately they would not be able to understand it and a murder will be taking place within the movie.

Within our opening sequence we have a message and moral of “don‟t judge a book by its cover” this is because the photographer has a disability of blindness and people will presume she is unable to do various tasks like take photos, enjoy life to its fullest and many more factors. Although within our opening sequence „Blinded‟ this simply isn‟t the case because the blinded person is a photographer and does normal things a normal photographer will do like dark room work and taking various photographs which are seen within the photography book that is flicked over within our opening sequence. We are hoping this will communicate with our audience because people these days think that if someone has a disability they are fragile and unable to do the same tasks a normal person without a disability would do therefore our opening sequence demonstrates this isn‟t actually true as the photographer takes photographs of various different scenes. Hopefully people will take this message on board like a book by not “judging a book by its cover” as after all everyone should be treated equally as much as they can because they have equal rights and they can do the same things despite of their disabilities they may have such in our case with a blind photographer taking photographs and doing normal day routines.

What have you learnt about technologies from the

process of constructing this product?

Question 6

The technologies that we used to process our product are a computer and a camera. We used the computer to plan what we were going to film, where and when on Word, we used the computer to blog what we‟re going to do next, and opened up polls on our blogger to be able to find out results to improve our media product, we also used the computer to edit our media product on IMovie, to change the effects to change how our media product would look like to create an atmosphere, to be able to add sounds which we got on Youtube, and to be able to put all our shots in order. We used the camera to actually film our media product to be able to produce and finalise our media product.

From these technologies we as a group learned how to use IMovie, which means we learned how to edit, change the effects of our media product, we learned how to slow and quicken some of our shots. By learning all of this, this has helped us to improve the way our media product look, and improves our media product by making it seem like an actual psychological thriller media product. So yes our knowledge has grown, and our skills have developed, so we know how to use these technologies which will help us in the future. By learning how to use a camera, we were able to film our media product which is very useful if we wanted to make our media product and to start our media product, so being able to know how to use a camera is essential, and besides, learning how to use the camera will be good for us in the future because we can also use cameras to do our things, other than for filming, we can take pictures, we now know where to put our camera, how to change shutter and aperture and how to focus the camera.

There are some limitations to our technologies because by using, there aren‟t any advanced options for us to choose. For example we wanted our title fonts to be in braille, but IMovie did not have that font so we couldn‟t use it. Also by using a camera, we had to wait until it‟s not raining as we didn‟t want rain drops on our camera lens as that would be in the way of our filming and also we don‟t want to ruin our camera as then we wouldn‟t be able to film using our camera, and might have to film using our phone camera which would have been of a low quality, and would have made our media product look not as attractive without the HD.

Technology impacted each stage as it improved our marks and our media product overall. By using our blog we were able to put up a poll, so that we could know how to improve our media product, so without our polls, we wouldn‟t be able to know how to improve our media product. By not using word, to plan out what we should do next, we would be unorganised. By using our camera, we were able to film our media product, and if we didn‟t we wouldn‟t be able to film our media product, then we wouldn‟t have a media product. So basically without a computer that doesn‟t have a video editor and internet, we wouldn‟t have been able to produce and complete our media product, and without a camera we wouldn‟t be able to film. Without those two technologies, we wouldn‟t have been able to start and finish our media product.

We have learnt that without the importance of technology, we wouldn‟t have been able to make our media product in the first place, and we learnt that you need a lot of technologies I you want to produce a better media product.

Technology helped with our work at each stage because it allowed us to maximise our opening sequence editing. This was because at the start when we were constructing our opening sequence we were able to understand all the things that we can do. We were then able to plan out our storyboard to make sure that we knew where the editing techniques that we knew could be implemented.

Technology did help improve our work because it enabled us to do more than what we could have done without. It enabled us to have a lot more special effects inside of the opening sequence.

It also offered more opportunities because it allowed us to have more editing and special effects. Then from this it allowed us to make our opening sequence look more professional. This is because of the speeds of the recordings, by allowing us to change the speed of the recording it made the opening sequence feel a lot more real and looked more professional that having it run at the same speed throughout. By using this it made the opening sequence have more of a flow to it. This is because the slow-motion is done so it shows everything that we wanted to show in that part of the opening sequence, it was also done because we thought that by having slow motion there it made the sequence have more of an appeal to it and it attracted our audience more.

However technology has held us back as when it was raining we couldn‟t record it, this was because of the camera, as we needed to protect the camera from it getting damaged from the rain, and if the camera was to get damaged, we wouldn't be able to film our media product to of a high standard. Since we didn't want to get the camera damaged, it held us back because a few days that we planned to go and record, we couldn‟t because of the rain. This held us back in the filming because we didn‟t have much that we could do without the filming. This meant that we had to wait for another day to get that part done, meaning that the editing was held back because we didn‟t have the film.

We used polls to analyse our features that we had on our blogs, which helped us to engage with our audience. For example the polls for our storyboard,this allowed us to receive feedback on it and from there we could make any changes that were required. This allowed us to receive information from our audience because they were able to vote weather the storyboarding for example needed improving. Also by having a blog there is also a comment section. This meant if any of the audience decided on something that needed improving then they can communicate with us by commenting on our blog.

We used polls on our blogs to find out our audience views about our storyboard and plot for our media product, so we chose to use this type of technology because we wanted to find accurate statistics from our audience views because we wanted to use this information to improve our media product.

The benefits of using these technologies are that without them, we wouldn‟t have been able to produce and finish our media product. Other types of technologies that we could have used but couldn‟t, would be possibly using our own light for our camera to improve our media product‟s lighting, or to even have a voice recorder to record possibly our own sound for our media product.