Foundation Portfolio Evaluation: Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups? 

In our film opening we only have one actor who multi roles to play both the protagonist and antagonist. A few films have done this, like Buried, but it's quite rare, most have a character list of between 3 - 10, like 28 Days Later.





Both character A and B in our film opening represent the female gender; there are no men in the opening of Apparition, however both of these roles could have been played by a man. I think that by having a woman play these roles, we break away from the stereotypical convention of men getting the better roles compared to women. In thrillers, it's also more common for men to play either if not both the antagonist and protagonist. The antagonist is usually far more stronger than the protagonist and therefore is the main reason why males are usually chosen for this role; however by using a woman it shows that not only are females capable of playing the villain but they also don't have to rely on their own physical strength and violence to create suspense and tension for the audience to remain interested.

It's not made abundantly clear what class both character A and B are; we filmed in a fairly middle/working class area, where people aren't struggling to make ends meet, but also can't afford to live frivolously. This represents the status of most people in the UK, which also sticks to the conventions seen in most thriller films as they're supposed to be realistic and relatable for the audience. The costumes aren't ostentatious and are similar to the attire most people would wear on a daily basis. The neighbourhood is similar to one that most people are familiar with and so therefore the target audience feel more at ease as the mise en scene is something they can identify with. 

Race is another stereotype seen in a majority of films; whilst it's not strange or unfamiliar to see an all black cast, it's not something that happens often in the film industry. Most films that attempt this, either flop at the box office, are independently made so aren't as well known or only have a few main black characters. 

If we were able to continue this film, we probably wouldn't cast it as all black characters, because we could want racial diversity to be seen. However by having the first two minutes of the film just showing a black actress, it breaks the stereotype of seeing mainly an all white cast. 

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation: Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products, i.e of film openings? 

To me the definition of a thriller film usually consists of a battle between the protagonist and the antagonist. The story will progress to show a chain of bad events that create continuous tension and suspense that collectively build to the climax of the film.  Using plot twists, cliffhangers, peaks and lulls; thrillers are created to keep the audience on the edge of their seats, with eventually the protagonist winning the battle between good and evil and fixing the disruption of the equilibrium.   

In order to adhere to this definition, a thriller film must stick to some conventions. Quick cuts; an editing technique we used during our film opening - this created tension as it kept the audience alert by forcing them to keep up with the fast paced action. It also helps fit a lot of information into a short amount of time, which is crucial during a two minute opening; you can see this during the voice over in Apparition as the shots help show the setting and establish the scene. 

 

Changes in the angle of shots; is a convention we stuck to as we used a variety of shots in our film opening as they make a scene more interesting for the audience watching it. My favourite angle used was a high angle shot, as it made character B a lot more frightening as they looked more powerful. This angle forces the audience to feel inferior as they are positioned at a lower angle. 
 

We challenged the conventions of thriller films for example costume. Often the antagonist wears dark clothing to blend into their surroundings; however we didn't, because we wanted to draw attention to the jeans of both the protagonist and antagonist - they're the same. This created suspense as the audience would realise that something unnatural is happening as they pay more attention and realise that there could be more to this antagonist that what they might think.

The range of main characters is another convention we didn't stick to, in most thriller films - the protagonists are a normally a large number of people. Having a larger group of people makes the audience feel at ease, they can relate to the group and find themselves identifying with different members of the group.


Inception is an example of a psychological thriller film with a group of more than one protagonist; the main characters include Dom, Arthur, Ariadne, Eames, Mr. Saito, Yusef and Robert Fischer.







We had only one protagonist and had the same person playing the antagonist. We decided to do this because introducing too many people in two minutes could become very confusing for the audience and we wanted to focus on the suspense. By taking this away and having only one person, the audience instantly feels more vulnerable and aware of their surroundings as they too feel alone.  

However, like our film opening; Buried - a thriller film with Ryan Reynolds; contains only himself as the main protagonist, the rest of the characters are just voices.

 

 

Editing: Non - Diegetic Music

Garageband

When editing our film opening; we had the option of using Garageband, however we hadn't
been taught how to use this software and we had tried as a group to teach ourselves numerous times with no success. 

Copyright Free Music
It was after this that we decided to use copyright free sounds, as this means we can use this music, because it's not copyrighted by anyone. We eventually found one by Kevin MacLeod called 'Classic Horror 3' - we chose this, because we thought it wasn't too overly dramatic. The non diegetic sound was quite subtle, but progressively built up throughout the film opening. 

We edited the sound to suit Apparition, we cut parts and put it in different places to create more of an effect at various points. Towards the end, to add a climax of sorts without coming across as too cliché; we quitened the pinnacle moment so that it didn't come across as over done and almost disappointing.  

Editing Apparition Film Opening

Editing our film opening was a long process as it involved editing cuts together to make the entire thing smooth. We also had to crop some shots, slow down shots and change the colouring of others. 

In this picture, you can see us cropping the frame so that you can't see the antagonists' upper body. We wanted to keep their identity a secret and when we filmed this at my house, we forgot that this is what we planned to do. Luckily, the crop feature worked quite well and the shot still looked like it had been filmed that way rather than edited. By cropping this, it meant that you can only see the antagonists' legs as they walk up the stairs, a contrast to the protagonist - who when they walked up the stairs, the audience saw their upper body. This creates suspense, because you still can't see the identity of the antagonist, but you know they're getting closer to the protagonist, the character in which the audience identifies with.

In this picture, you can see we have changed the colouring. Often in thriller films, the colour has some sort of wash over it; whether that be sepia, graywash or any other colour - this is done for effect and we wanted to create the same sort of look. By doing this, it also helped the red eyes of the antagonist (character B) stand out, which is a crucial element to our story opening. This colour change also makes the antagonists eyes look darker and more gaunt adding to the sinister feel of the character, which adds to the suspense. 

In this picture, we used slow motion. This was because we wanted to draw the audiences attention to the fact that the protagonist (character A) is taking the radio upstairs, which must mean whatever she is listening to is important. Using slow motion also gave us a chance to give the audience more information about the storyline so that they wouldn't be confused at the end. Slowing down scenes or action during a film allows the audience to focus on the smaller details that they might have missed. This creates suspense as slowing down the footage means that if something bad was to happen, the audience are helpless to stop it from happening.

Script Writing

I wrote the script for the radio bulletin voice over that Leah and Zeyna would be reading out. The reason this needed to be included in the film opening was in order to provide the audience with a brief understanding of what was happening so that they wouldn't be left confused after they watched our film opening. 

This voice over happens when the protagonist (character A) carries the radio up to her room, this will create suspense as the scene will cut to someone else watching her from outside the house; someone who matches the description of what is heard on the radio.

I researched many breaking news bulletins - both real and fictional - in order to make the script sound as realistic as possible. News reports are short, concise, and provide as much information that is needed. Here is one that I watched for inspiration and research purposes: 

Radio news reports are a way to deliver information to the audience that they can trust without it being biased. News reports give a third person point of view and continue to enforce the belief that - especially in a thriller film - this is very close to reality.  

Camera Shots & Angles

When filming, there was a variety of camera angles and shots that we wanted to use in order to make our film opening as dynamic as possible. Milly and I found that when filming; shooting the same scene but from many different angles gave us a lot of different shots to use to make the action seen visually appealing. 

An example of this is when the protagonist (character A) stands up, we used a close up, a long shot from behind a door and a mid shot; so that when we edited this, we created a match on action shot and therefore made a simple movement more interesting for the audience to watch. This will improve our work, because often match on action is used to show someone walking through a door etc, for example; the way we showed it in our preliminary task, however this match on action shows the protagonist doing something simple - just standing up from the floor. The long shot from behind a door creates suspense, because it gives the impression that someone is watching the protagonist, and because the audience are viewing the scene from this angle; they too feel like they're spying which can not only add to the tension but make them feel uncomfortable. 

We used a point of view shot when the antagonist is entering the home of the protagonist. This angle is usually seen in films that are filmed in a 'found footage' way, with one character always holding the camera for the audience to see. We didn't film our film opening in this way, however we wanted to use this camera angle, so that the audience could feel the disjointed suspense that comes with seeing things from the antagonists' point of view. This will improve our work because, this camera angle is unusual to be seen and used in films that aren't classed as 'found footage', so we've broken the convention of this. Usually in film, the audience view the action from the protagonists viewpoint and therefore automatically side with them; however by forcing them to almost become the antagonist, it creates suspense and uncertainty. 

We also used a low angle shot of the antagonist (character B) as they stood outside of the bedroom of character A. We used this camera angle to make them seem more powerful and intimidating as conventionally the antagonist has more power and strength compared to the protagonist. This will improve our work because it's not often that high and low angle shots are seen and used, so this adds variety to our film opening and gives the audience a new viewpoint. This creates suspense, because the audience are placed at a lower angle compared to character B, which in turn makes them feel inferior and therefore weaker.  

Filming Apparition Film Opening

Milly and I filmed round my house on Sunday 30th November; we battled a lot of issues - the main two being the lack of quality that the camera we had been given had and the amount of daytime hours that we had due to the fact it's winter. 

We didn't initially follow a plan as such and decided to film in order that the storyboard follows so that we wouldn't confuse ourselves. I came up with the idea to film the same thing but from a variety of different angles so that when we came to editing it all together, we could create match on action at different points during the film opening. 

A problem we kept facing was the camera going out of focus when we was filming. When watching other AS Media students' work, I noticed one of them has used a focus pull which was a really clever technique I wanted to include; however we was told due to the low quality of the camera we had to use, this wasn't possible.

Due to it becoming dark rather quickly, this caused the camera to shift in and out of focus a lot especially whilst filming, which meant we wasted a lot of time trying to shift it back into focus manually. 

When filming, in hindsight, we should have started earlier or planned what to film and when, because we started loosing daylight, which meant part of our film opening could lack continuity. Hopefully, this won't be picked up on camera or maybe it's something we can edit and fix. 

When filming, I also had to put on a pair of red cat eye contacts, which didn't take as long as I thought it would. It was quite dark outside however, when it came to filming this scene and so I was worried they wouldn't be seen as vividly on the camera; if this is so hopefully we can edit the colour of the frame. 

Institutional Research

There are many film production companies and distributors that create and distribute films.

Whilst some are UK based, others are US based; there's different pros and cons to each of these. A UK based film production company and distributor such as Hammer Film Productions is an example. 

Founded in the 1930's, this film company is best known for the variety of horror films that is has made during the 1950's to 1970's such as The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula. These incredibly popular horror/thriller films gained a major success in both the box office and reviews; Hammer Film Productions eventually went on to create many sequels. During the last decade, they have begun to make well known revival films such as The Woman in Black and its sequel - The Woman in Black: Angel of Death. The company has also made thriller films, one in 2011 called The Resident, which has similar plot lines of our own film opening - a stalker pursing the main character. 

Using a UK based film production company would help keep costs low and ensure that members of the British public would be attracted to our film and pay to watch it. Often small, independent films made and produced in their own country gain the interest and support of people who live in that region and through word of mouth and reviews cause the film to then gain media attention, praise and box office success in other larger, more commercial countries such as the USA.

US based film production companies often tend to have far more money and therefore a larger budget to use on a film. These means that unlike smaller UK based companies, these larger businesses are able to spend more money on production, marketing and advertising. Paramount Pictures Corporation is a US film studio production company and has a revenue of $1.2 billion in 2011.

Working worldwide since the early 1900's, they've produced a range of famous films such as Transformers (and it's sequels); having a major film company such as this to produce our film would ensure its success. They'd have the money to promote it effectively and also have enough to cover any post production costs such as CGI and sound effects. Paranormal Activity is a franchise of films that whilst might not be a thriller film, it uses suspense to gain and heighten audience interest without the use of major post production. Techniques such as non diegetic music that can be heard throughout the film has its' expenses which is something Paramount Pictures would have helped contribute for.

When choosing film production companies to work on our film, I decided to choose a mixture of both UK and US businesses. 

Lionsgate Films is a Canadian-American production and distribution company founded in the 1960's. 

It focuses on small, independent films - which is what Apparition is - and distributes them worldwide turning them into a commercial success. It's a well known company with many other smaller distributor companies working for them such as Alliance Films and Momentum Pictures.

 

This company will help turn Apparition from a small, relatively unknown film to a hopefully major leading film across the U.S. Lionsgate's main goal is to help produce and then distribute the film worldwide, focusing on Canada and America. 

Vertigo Films is a British film and production company founded in London in 2002.

They also focus on small, unknown British films which have a mediocre to minimal funding budget; this fits with our film, Apparition. They have their own personal goal to produce and distribute four films a year with the help of Entertainment One - an international entertainment corporation. 

Blumhouse Productions is an American production company that produces micro and low budget films, the majority of them being horrors and thrillers; such as The Paranormal Activity series, Sinister, Dark Skies, The Purge and the Insidious series. They focus on producing the film independently and then release them to a large market, which helps reduce costs but also promote the film.

They also have a first look deal with Universal Companies, which means any new or upcoming film, Blumhouse Productions get to refuse it or accept it first before any other production company. This helps our film Apparition, because if was going to work with Blumhouse, it means there's a high chance our film could also get noticed by Universal; due to that deal and how closely they work together. 

Titles and Font Research

When thinking of our title font, we wanted to make sure it fit in with the thriller theme, however we didn't want it to be stereotypical. We looked at a variety of different fonts, on dafont.com as well as professional fonts used on thriller films, before making our decision.  

This first one I like, because the font looked smeared in some places similar to blood being spread across walls etc. It instantly gives a sinister feel and creates suspense. 

This font looks as if someone has clawed or scratched the words into a wall perhaps. Maybe someone or something was trying to get in or out of a building? It creates suspense by making the audience what could have created those markings and why they did so in the first place. 

28 Days Later has a font that looks as if it's been there awhile and is now fading due to natural wear and tear. This fits the storyline of the film as it's about the world coping after a deadly virus wipes out most of human civilisation. 

Gone Girl's font is kept rather simple; however it fits in with the theme of the film as part of the title is hidden behind the clouds. Part of the title is 'gone', similar to the main character who mysteriously disappears. 

In the end, we chose this for our font. We kept it white as against a black background, it stands out and the font itself looks a if it's been spray painted on. Graffiti is a form of rebellion as well as an outlet, a voice for freedom, this fits well with our film as due to the fact that there was twin copies of everyone destroying the Earth; perhaps graffiti is the only way the original copies can express themselves.  

Production Schedule

The majority of our film opening is being filmed at my house, and because there's only one character - played by the same person, me - there wasn't any need for the whole group to film. We decided that Milly would film with me at my house on Sunday and then the whole group, Milly, Leah, Zeyna and I would edit and create the non - diegetic music together, during the following weeks.

Filming date: Sunday 30th November 2:30 - 5:30
Filming Location: My house
Camerawork: Milly
Actor(s): Lia

We didn't need a variety of props; as the mise - en - scene was the stereotypical items you would find in a normal household. The only extra props needed was red contacts for the shocking end of the film opening.

Props: Red contact lenses

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Milly and I managed to film the entire film opening on Sunday, which took around three to four hours to do. Due to the winter season, the sunset at around 3:30, which meant that we had to make sure that when we filmed, the scenes matched up with the lighting change to show continuity. We think we did this successfully, as it flowed nicely when we uploaded the footage ready for editing.

Target Audience Research

In order to see what people thought about thriller films and our film opening, we decided to create a questionnaire with ten questions that we asked to ten different people. We decided that our target audience would be young adults so those of around late teens to late twenties. As those were the people that tended to watch and enjoy thrillers more.

The results we got back showed that most people enjoyed cliffhangers at the end of films and openings, as it makes them more eager to watch the sequel or the rest of the film; this was good feedback for us as this is a technique we were planning on using. This will create suspense during our film opening as people will want to know what happens next.

Another good piece of feedback we got was that people preferred when little of the plot line is revealed during the opening, which is something we listened to; only giving small pieces of information to the audience when it's needed for them to understand. Including little of the plot line adds to the suspense as the audience are left in the dark and have little to no idea what will happen next. 

A lot of people said they preferred when film openings started at the end and worked their way up to present day; when planning our Apparition we tried to keep it quite vague. This way if we was to develop it further or make it into a full film, it could follow this idea starting from the end and finishing at the beginning. This could still create suspense as the audience would have seen the ending but not the events that led up to it happening. 

The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is a independent government organisation that has been classifying films in the UK since 1912. 

When thinking about our film opening, we had to think about classification and what we were aiming for and whether or not our content would be suitable for that particular rating. 

Most thriller films range between an 12 rating to an 18 rating, because many thrillers can range in the amount of blood, gore, violence, swearing, graphic and sexual scenes that they choose to include; all of these elements affect the rating of a film and can cause it to increase. 

I think Apparition would be a 15 rating, as whilst it most likely contain frequent strong language and violence; it wouldn't need to heavily rely on this which is something that films rated 18 do. Rated 18's might also contain sexual violence, graphic sex scenes and discriminatory language/behaviour, which most likely won't be needed in our film. 

By having a slightly lower film rating, it also means that we can attract viewers of a slightly younger age bracket and gain more revenue. If Apparition was an 18, then we'd lose audience members who are between the ages of sixteen and seventeen, who are part of the target audience.