Appendix 12: Anaylsis of Completed Thriller

Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media film uses shots and techniques similar to 'Se7en', 'Red Eye' and 'Strangers on a train'. In some of the shots we use partial vision, this is where the image is faded to make the head and shoulders the priority of the shot. We use this on the shot were Abbie realises she has lost her phone to show the audience the feelings that she is expressing and know that she is the main focus of the scene.

The first example is going to show simulaities between our thriller and and Strangers on a train. There is a shot in our film 'The Playground' where the camera is moving down a path towards the park and this is similar to a shot in 'Strangers on a Train' where the camera is moving along the railway which shows the point of views of the characters as they move along their journeys.Another example is the white text which is used in 'Se7en'. We used this in the title sequence over the action but sutely so it does not attract all of the audience's attention away from the action.

The Final example is the main title for 'The Playground' is shown in red onto a black background which fades in and out at the beginning and end of the title sequence which is similar to 'Red eye' which also uses a Red font onto a black background.

The Playground can be linked to other thrillers through mise en scene, editing and camera work. The quick cuts along the path between the walking and the pictures of the group of teenagers is fast to give the audience a glimpse as to what has been happening on there holiday and keep them up to date with the story. The editing to begin with is slow but then it speeds up along with the convosation and back down again at the climax of the opening scene. All of these elements have created a opening scene of a thriller film with the same codes and conventions as a real thriller film.

Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The opening scene shows a group of teenage boys and girls out in a group at the night. They are shown like the audience would expect them to seen; Dressed in hoodies and other casual wear, smoking, swearing and being loud and obnoxious. This is not good or accurately example of the majority of teenagers although it is stereotype.

The picture below are 'holiday pictures' which shows them having a good time and looking like teenagers do. These pictures are realistic when you compare them to pictures of your average teenagers.

Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

A small media institution would probably be more suited to disrepute our media rather than a more well known company suck as 'Universal' because we are amateur directors/producers because this is our first film, we didn't use any special effects or props we just used what was available. Also the actors/actress used in our film are just friends who are drama students. An example of a small British film company that may want to release our film is 'Coffee films'. This company is currently working on a thriller/horror called 'Lucid'. I believe these type of small film companies will benefit from our film more than big film companies like 'Universal' would do because they wouldn't receive back a big enough profit.

Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for our thriller is teenagers and young adults. we made our film a 15 certificate knowing that these age groups are more likely to be at the cinema and also the plot of the story and some of the language used is not suitable for age groups younger than the 15 certificate. This age group allows the audience to relate to the charters involved and the older adult will be able to sympathise with the situations that the teenagers are going through which also makes the film look more realistic.

Q5. We attracted our audience by creating a questionnaire. We made 40 copies of a questionnaire we created about ideas we had come up with about a film about which ideas sound good and scary and gave them out to people around our college. Some of the results we got back from the questionnaires were that general people like to be scared when watching a thriller and that they also like psychological thrillers rather than over genres of thrillers. Also people agreed with the name with we come up with, which was ‘The Playground’, and the setting we picked which was a playground/park.

Q6. What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

For the preliminary task, we didn't need to much planning which is alot different to the actual coursework film, we had to do alot of planning sheets, write plans for the shooting days and decide what the aim of the film was going to be before we had started. In the preliminary task we could use people in our group to act and also we could film it during our lesson time but in the actual coursework we had to find our own actors and film in our own time which caused some problems. We had a few problems with the actors which caused a few delays in filming and also with the lighting because the setting was night time so we had to wait to sun down before we could begin filming. The editing for the preliminary task was relatively easy because it was all filmed in one location with only a few takes but with the coursework it was filmed on different days so we had to add lighting ourselves to try and even it out. I have learned from the project that our planning should have been more efficient and that we would have prepared for the lighting more to avoid to much darkness in the film and also general editing techniques.