Evaluation

Question 1

My media product uses, develop and challenge forms and conventions in many different ways. A way in which my media product challenges conventions in thriller films is who the villain in our film turns out to be. The fact that our villain in our film is in fact a fireman, this is challenging conventions as firemen are seen as good law-abiding citizens not people who will commit crimes. As well as this, our film also uses the convention of thriller films that the criminal in our film is a male. If we were to challenge this convention, we would have a woman to act as the criminal.

Question 2
Our media product represents the social group of students and teenagers. The house that gets set on fire is full of young people who are having a house party. This representation of teenagers is typical of this modern society as shown in the image bellow. 

 

Also represented in out media product are criminals, by the way that our actor was dressed in all black, he is seen as mysterious and sly. This is the general assumption that most people have of criminals. The final group represented in our film was people who work for services such as the fire brigade. It shows at the end that people are not always what you think, such as the fireman who turned out to be a criminal who set a house on fire.

Question 3
A media institution that may distribute our media product would be one that has experience in distributing films of a similar genre. An example of this is Omni film distribution. A company like this would be perfect to distribute our film as they have experience with our target market. They will know who to aim our media product at, and how to go about advertising it before being released. By choosing a company like this, it will allow for the best outcome when it comes to distributing the film, where as if we chose a company that’s not experienced in distributing thriller films they may not do as well.

Question 4
The audiences for our media product are people that live in rural areas that enjoy films that challenge conventions of normal thrillers. Also people who generally enjoy thriller films would appreciate watching our film. The way that our film opens with action and a house being set on fire, would leave the audience asking questions like why it happened, this would make them more likely to want to watch the rest of the film to find out more about the plot.

Question 5
In our media product we attracted and addressed our audience in a number of ways. One being how we challenge thriller conventions, by showing our audience that the villain in our film infact works for the fire service, this would shock most people in the audience and make them carry on watching the film. Another way the audience would be attracted to the film is the way that at the beginning of the film, there is no way of knowing what is going on until it actually happens, this would make the audience feel suspense and attract them to watch the rest of the film.

Question 6
I have learnt a lot about technologies to do with producing a film during this project. I’ve learnt how to do smooth pan shots using a camera and realized how to work out the best angle for the shot. After shooting the film, I was able to improve my skills in editing videos, but more importantly the sound track. I learnt how to perfect the sound in the film, to erase all background noise that’s not needed but keep the audio that is important to the film. I’ve realised that the use of the technologies in the modern film industry are vitally important and films would be nowhere near as good or professional without this use of technology.

Question 7
I have learnt a lot in the time between my preliminary task and this full product. I now have a bigger understanding of how to use the technology needed to create a finished film, including final cut and sound track pro. I found out how to make the final outcome look more professional by doing little things such as transitions between scenes that fade in and out instead of just going black then cutting into the next scene. Little things that I have learnt through out the course like that have helped make the final outcome look smooth and finished properly.

Final Film (Burning Money)

This is the final version of our film. We used our audience feedback to improve things that were not to a high standard and make the film better. This final version also includes footage from the fire station we filmed at, this makes the film look a lot better and makes it stand out from the rest of the films in our group.

This is the rough cut of our Film that we showed to an audience and received feedback, we then knew what changes needed to be made for the final film to look right and achieve the highest grade possible

Animatic

Thriller films i have watched

Mission impossible II
XXX
I, Robot
Angles & Demons
The Dark knight
Hitman
The Bourne Ultimatum
Snakes on a plane.

These are just some of the thriller films i have watched, they all use different conventions that i have listed a few posts bellow.

The video clip bellow shows similar conventions to our film. The biggest similarity to our film is how in this clip there are a lot of unanswered questions which is the same in our film. When you see the man setting the house on fire you ask why he has done it. This question is asked again when you see that the villain in the film is actually a fire man, who are known as good hard working people not an assassin. This is also how we challenge the conventions in our film. The fire in this clip of The Dark Knight is also a similarity to our film as our film revolves around a house fire.  

Uniform / Props Research

This is an example of the uniform we are going to have to get for the fireman, as if our actor is wearing these clothes, it is clear to them that he works in the fire service.

Bellow are a few examples of what we wanted the villain in our film to be wearing. We wanted him to be wearing dark clothes as this is often accosiated with criminals and people who are up to no good. 

Bellow again is another example of criminals wearing dark clothes. 

we will also need to get a petroll can, and fill it full of water so that we could pretend it is petrol for the scene when the house gets set on fire, we will need to find a can that looks something like this,

Above are two pictures of our script, it includes things you will see in the film, and things you will hear. 

Treatment

 

A man sets a house on fire, which is owned by his relatives who are in line to collect a small fortune of a recent family member who has died. So he burns their house down with them inside because after them he is inline for the small fortune. Then after he sets the house on fire it cuts to him pulling up at work putting a uniform on then it cuts to you seeing him and his colleague putting out the fire and you realise that one of the fireman is the one who started the fire in the first place. If we was to carry on the story he finds out that he was actually not the next person in line and he has to go and kill them to but in a different way and towards the end the entire story comes out and he ends up accidentally killing himself by setting up a trap that he falls into accidently. 

Story Board

This is the story board for the film, it includes descriptions of the shots and scenes underneath the pictures. 

Potential Audience research

There was a few ways i went about researching who i thought would be our potential audience for the film. The most effect way i did this was by going around the class, and asking the people in it what type of film they would most prefer to watch. The Males in the class were more likely to say Thriller than the girls, this lead me to believe that my film would appeal to males more than females. All that was left was for me to find out the age range of my potential audience. 

As i had already asked people in age range i know the bottom end of the age for the target audience would be 16, as people younger than that like different genres of film. To find out the upper age bracket of the target audience i decided to ask people like my family and friends the same question as i did to those at school "what is your favorite genre of music?" By doing this i found out that after the age of about 45, generally people started getting less interested in thriller films, and started watching films with different genres. 

Location Research

Above is an image of a fire station that would be suitable for our film. However there are some bad points such as how there is no space for the engine to pull out of the station without turning straight onto the road, this would not work in our film as we want the engine to pull out of the station and then stop while the doors shut behind it.

Above is a picture of a different fire station. This is better than the first one as it has more space for the engine to pull out of the station without being on the road. However i think this station is a bit too big for what we are looking for. Ideally we would like a fire station with only one garage for as this is all we need, and bigger fire stations may be to busy to let us film.

This is a picture of the fire station in Penkridge, this would be perfect for our film as it has a single garage, and a good size driveway so we could see the engine pulling out and then waiting on the drive while the door behind it shuts. 

Shooting schedule

Above is our shooting schedule, this allowed us to keep on time with our recording. Also by giving a copy to our actors they knew where they had to be and for what time. 

Split Edits

A split edit is an edit in which the audio starts before or after the picture is cut. It is commonly used to ease the transition from one scene to another.

Thriller conventions

This is a list of Thriller conventions :

A crime at the core of the narative, often a murder
A complex narrative structure, with clues and resolutions
A narrative pattern on establising enigmas which the viewer expects to be solved
Extraordinary events in normal situations
Themes of identity
Themes of mirroring
Themes of voyeurism
Protagonist with a 'flaw' that is exploited by the antagonist
Mise en scene which eco's
Often a scene where the protagonist is in peril