Solemn

Here is the final edit for our opening 2 minutes of a thriller.

Evaluation 7

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

Here is a video of us explaining how we have developed and improved from our preliminary task:

Evaluation 6

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

Throughout the making of our thriller, we have learnt that many types of technology are needed to make it. We also learnt of the importance of the internet when marketing and how new technologies such as smart phones can help you in many different ways. Here is a video explaining the technologies we used:

Evaluation 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation 5 on Prezi

Evaluation 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Name: Claire Martins

Age: 18

Studying English Literature and Philosophy at Cambridge University.

Has a part time job as a sales assistant at Debenhams. Enjoys going out with her friends for meals and movie nights. Her favourite foods are spaghetti, fruit and donuts and enjoys going to Nando’s at the weekend.

Her favourite film is Mean Girls but also enjoys thrillers such as The Perfect Getaway. Her favourite TV Shows are 90210 and Friends and she enjoys listening to her favourite artists, Jessie J and The Script. She enjoys dancing and performs in ballet recitals on a regular basis.

Name: Lewis Harley

Age: 19

Works full time at HMV

Lives at home with his mum and younger brother, Greg.  Enjoys watching films and listening to loud music. His favourite bands are Metallica, Nirvana and Arctic Monkeys. His favourite TV show is Family Guy and his favourite films are the Final Destination series.

Enters skateboarding competitions often, has come 2^nd place in the Southend Over 18’s Skateboarding competition.

Enjoys eating junk food such as pepperoni pizza, hotdogs and is always seen hanging out at Burger King.

These are the type of people we are aiming our thriller at because they're middle class, sociable people but also people who enjoy films. We are aiming at groups of friends and film lovers to come and view our thriller at the cinema as these are the type of people who we think will enjoy it the most.

Evaluation 3

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

Evaluation 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

When coming up with the ideas for our thriller and the characters that are in it, we decided as a group very quickly that we would like to focus on a child and have the thriller from the child's perspective. We decided this as the young character represents purity and innocence that we wanted to enhance this in any way we could. We research different films that had the child as the main character and realised that the one to focus on would be 'Orphan'.

The similar ideas that influenced our character's appearance was the hair in side bunches. We used this to show the young age of the character and showing that would increase the effectiveness of the thriller. Other similarities include the dark make up around the eyes- on the 'Orphan' image the eyes are dark and the eyes darkened but not as heavily as ours. In our image the eyes were darkened and bruised to show the physical effect of the car crash.

A difference that we wanted to show was the eyes, at first in our thriller, the eyes are normal, however the eyes in the picture of 'Orphan' are very dark- almost black. The black could represent the evil, mystery or even death being a very negative colour. We first considered using black contacts on the character, but then decided that the red would stand out more if at the end of the 2 minutes, and would therefore raise more questions that could be answered if the thriller carried on.

The pale skin on the 'Orphan' character is similar to ours, giving them a purer look and increasing their innocence and child- like image.

By using white clothes (as explained in the costume post) we went against the 'Orphan' image of using the dark red/black colours. We done this as we thought it took away from the pure look creating a harsher and darker character. We didn't do this as we wanted to keep the light look to out character so that when she changed evil there would be more shock from the audience.   

Evaluation 1

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

The title of our film is first shown when Jody spells it out using the building blocks we made. However, it is not fully clear that is the title until it is displayed at the end. This way of introducing the title into the actual footage is unusual and would go against typical conventions of a thriller as they would usually just edit the title in during the opening on a black background.

However, in the case of the font style of the thriller, our title does follow traditional codes and conventions in terms of font style. It is quite simple but also quite a quirky, spooky font which suits the genre. For example; in the film Black Swan, the title shot is plain black words on a white background, which is very similar to what we have done, however we decided to switch the colours around as it seemed darker and more fitting for our thriller.

In terms of settings and locations we had main locations while filming. We had a red room, which was Megan's Dad's study. This was our main location as this is where we witness the change that Jody goes through, turning from inncocent to evil. We would say that this goes with codes and conventions of a thriller because alot of films use colours to symbolise danger and/or isolation. This screenshot also introduces the character Jody. It shows her happily playing with her teddy and some building bricks. She is introduced straight away while the opening credits are being shown.

We also used Megan's Dad's car to film to flashback car crash scene. This goes partly with and party against conventions of a thriller because although flashbacks are used often in films, car scenes at the camera angles we used are not common.

This screenshot shows the majority of props we used as well as the costume. Here you can see a teddy, the building bricks, a photo frame, her white dress, and her hair and brusing make-up. We would say that this goes with conventions of a thriller as films often use props to symbolise things and make-up for effect. In our case, the teddy, white dress and hair in bunches shows her innocence, contrasting against the red background which represents danger.

In terms of the story, the main shot that sets what the film is about comes right at the end of the opening. It goes with traditional conventions of a thriller because extreme close ups are often used to show the expression of the characters. Red contact lenses or make-up/props are often used there abouts.

Genre wise, we have followed conventions of a thriller by having a scene with fake blood. This shows that it is a thriller. Lots of thrillers include fake blood and we used it in the car crash scene along with make-up to show that Jody had died.

Lastly, our best piece of editing was the photoframe shot. We used an aerial shot to look down on the photoframe as though we were seeing it through Jody's eyes. We used green card to make a green screen and edited in a Mum (Ms Thompson), a Dad (Mr Shearing) and Jody to make a family portrait type picture. We then made Jody fade from the picture as she died, like she never even existed. This, although is rare to see depending on the story of the thriller, has been done before in thrillers and therefore would follow typical conventions of a thriller. However, we were pleased with how it looked and thought the idea was clever. It shows a key moment in the opening as it makes the audience realise that she has died and makes the audience feel sorry for her and wonder what she will do next.

Audience Feedback

Once we were finished filming and the final touches were made to the thriller we put it straight on our YouTube account. We could then access it easily to show people and ask what they thought. As the public are the people who will go and see the film it is their opinion that will matter the most to us. 

Reviews: 

We recorded some responses, but as a few of these were feedback from links that we sent out or asked people to watch we were unable to record everyone, so the main quotes are used in the presentation, with recorded responses of some people on our YouTube account. 

                                         Peers/Friends:

As the age certificate is a 15 we wanted to ask people aged between 16-18 about what was good and what could be improved in our thriller. Here are the main quotes from what people said along with their age.

“ The eyes at the end are scary after the slow singing built up the moment, but the car crash scene could be more realistic.” (16)

“I enjoyed the bit when the teddy rolls off face down, like she left the child life behind, but there could be more voices at the beginning” (17)

                                               Family:

 Although they are not our main target audience, we wanted to show our parents/family the thriller and get their feedback on it.  

“The music with the sudden sounds makes it very jumpy and builds the suspense, but there could have been more blood in the car crash scene” (40)

“I liked how the songs were in slow motion and the voices over-lapping, but the car crash could have been slower” (51) 

                                          Teachers/Staff: 

As we were around school a lot we asked our teachers to watch the thriller and give us some feedback, we made sure we asked different genders.

“I thought the plot was good and left me with questions” (26)

“I love the bit where she disappears from the photo, that’s really creepy, the technical bits are really good! What could be better is having more close shots of the girls face to show the make up” (34)

                                            Feedback:

Overall, the feedback that we got was good and we completely agree with the points raised. If we were to do it again we would take these points in to consideration and adapt our thriller to make it better and scarier.    


Here are some video responses to our thriller:

Twitter Page

We have created a Twitter page for 'Solemn Thriller'. As social networking is becoming increaingly popular and more and more people are turning to them, we thought that this was another good way to advertise. Many films are advertised on Twitter, and with the world wide reach that it had it enables us to get as big an audience as possible.

We try to keep posting as regularly as we can, using our mobile phones as well to keep up to date. 

We wanted to keep posting to keep the audience and followers up to date. We posted links off YouTube and Facebook on the twitter page to get people to view out other types of media pages.

   

Facebook Page

We created a Facebook page for 'Solemn Thriller'. With over 250 million people connected on Facebook worldwide, it creates a huge market base, where many other businesses can promote, and offer deals, products, and services.
It is good for promoting out thriller as we can reach lots of people, but also target the audience that we have previously assembled. Facebook attracted people of a very wide age range, so to get the most out of promoting our thriller on Facebook, we could make sure the colours, quotes and reviews are aimed at the target audience and easy to see. We wouldn't want to advertise among other competitors or sectors that have nothing to do with our genre or age range, so therefore we would be segmented in with the same groups and competitors as ours.

We started our Facebook page with the original logo.

We are keeping the Facebook page up to date, with pictures. 

We are also adding statuses that will keep the audience updated on what we are doing, for the timeline. If it was a real film being released in cinema, the Facebook page would be good promotion as they can keep posting when the film will be in cinema's, so people will remember. To have a less formal approach, the film pages often put backstage pictures and videos on them as they will make the audience more anticipated to see the film, as they are getting hints of it through the build up. Promotion for a film is one of the most important stages that requires a lot of effort to keep up and keep the public aware of the film.  

Public Choosing Best Slogan

As a group we were undecided on which slogan to go with, so we decided the simplest way to choose one was ask people. the choices for them to choose were:

1) "little girls are sweet, so is revenge"

2) "innocence is masked by sweet revenge"

3) "innocence is captured, revenge is released"

4) "innocence leaves and evil takes over"

These are the results we got:

1) 12

2) 3

3) 8

4) 2

These results are quite reliable, as we asked a variety of age groups and genders. Some comments people made included:

"Number 3 is quite sinister and evil, and has a more serious tone"

"Number 1 is good as it mentions the character in the plot."

Overall, the chosen slogan (1) will be featured on out poster, and promotion visuals. 

Slogan Ideas

For our poster, we've decided to use a slogan as we think this would be a good way of advertising. We want to create a slogan that will stick in people's mind, raise quesions and make them want to see the film. Here are a couple of ideas we had:

We thought of 'Life isn't as pretty as it seems' as it relates to the little girl not being so cute and pretty anymore however we felt this had a slight comedic side to it and didn't suit the film genre well. This also applied to another idea of ours 'Life isn't always a ring a roses' which we came up with as the nursery rhyme 'Ring A Roses' will be in the background of our thriller.

We liked using the word 'life' in the slogan as we thought it related to the film well because the little girl loses her life during the car crash.

We also liked using the word 'innocence' because the girl loses her innocence when she becomes possessed. For example 'Little girls aren't as innocent as they seem' was one of our ideas however we felt that this wasn't very original and had probably been used before.

Other ideas that we had that arnt shown on the image were "little girls are sweet, so is revenge" and also "innocence lost". Both of these were good, the first one mentions that the character is a young girl, which reperesents innocence itself, where as the second one says the word, however wer thing it is too short and wouldnt mean much to the audience.

we also thaught of "innocence is captured, revenge is released"- this was good as it had rhythem to it, and could be easily remember by the audience, ewhich is what a slogen should do.   

There was also "innocence leaves and evil takes over", we didnt like this one as much as we thaught it was too blunt and didnt leave as many questions as previous ideas.  

We will ask the public which one they like best, so it isnt just our opinion and we can get different veiws on it.

Poster

Here is the final poster for our thriller 'Solemn'. We have included the title of the film. credits, a slogan and the BBFC rating of 15. We decided to use a forest setting to show that she was isolated and completely alone. We liked to use the building blocks in the scene as it is relevant to the young age of the girl and it stood out well against the background. We also put the BBFC rating and credits on to make it look more realistic like a real poster.

Poster Influences

Our poster can be compared to two thriller posters we found; Red Riding Hood and Childish Games.

 Our poster can be compared to Red Riding Hood by the use of the forest setting, the character and the layout of the title and slogan etc. We both have our slogans at the top of the poster. We both have a similar character of a girl in the center of the poster and we both have put the title near the bottom. However, differences between these posters would be that Red Riding Hood doesn't include the credits at the bottom or the BBFC certificate it has been given. It has however, got the release date on show. Also, the graphics of the picture looks less realistic to ours, almost animated. The clour schemes are also slightly different as Red Riding Hood is more dark and red, where as we have gone for naturalistic lighting and white. And obviously, the position of the main character is different as our character is sitting rather than standing.

We think the most similar to ours would be Childish Games.

Both these posters feature a little girl with a teddy in a forest. They both show the credits at the bottom, however the rest of the layout is slightly different. We also, looked up the storyline for this film to see if the film was similar but it wasn't therefore it was only an influence becuase of the poster.
Our poster would be a combination of the Childish Games poster picture and the Red Riding Hood poster layout.

Zone D Logo

Here is the logo we have created for our production company 'Zone D Productions'. It will feature at the beginning of all of the films we make including the opening 2 minutes of our thriller.

Editing Diary

Here is a video explaining how we edited our thriller and the problems we faced.

Diary of a Day Filming

We spent one day filming in our chosen location outside Megan and Jody's houses. Admittedly, we weren't fully prepared, as although we had remembered all the props, costumes and everything we needed, we were not exactly sure of our locations. Megan's Mum's house and Dad's house are within a short drive from eachother, as well as the option of Jody's house, so we decided to try out different settings from what was available and decided what would look best. In the end, we used Megan's Dad's car and Megan's Dad's study/spare room. We were happy with our choice as the room was red which is symbolic of danger and was a great contrast with the white costume. We were also undecided on where to take our poster shot but fortunately Megan knew the area well and we found a small isolated forest which fitted well and made the building blocks props look really good and they stood out well.

In terms of shooting, first we did the pale make-up and put Jody's hair in neat bunches as well as putting Jody into her costume. We then decided to get the poster shot done while her make-up and hair was made up in the right way. We found the nearby forest location we wanted to use and got Jody and the teddy bear into the position we wanted. We then placed the building blocks into the scene closer to the camera and layed them out wonky. We think this effect worked really well and the title really stands out. We also liked how Jody looked in this shot as you can tell she is isolated and alone, which is what we wanted to portray within the opening.

We then shot the first scene which was the car crash. We got Megan's Dad to drive into a nearby lay-by where passing cars could be seen. We hoped this would make it look more realistic like the car was moving for the crash. We then went back to make the blood and paint it on Jody as well as messing up her bunches and then returning to shoot the aftermath of the car crash scene.

Then we redid the bruises and blood onto Jody and messed up her hair even more to shoot in our second location; Megan's Dad's study. We moved a few things around so the room looked empty and talked Jody through the kind of things she needed to do, for example; hugging Bernard the teddy bear and then throwing him to the side and stacking the building bricks and then knocking them down.

Lastly, we helped Jody to put her red contact lenses in for us to shoot the last shot; an extreme close up of her eyes opening.

We then checked back over some of the footage to make sure we had everything we needed. We had made sure to film everything multiple times over in different angles etc. to make sure it would look ok when editing. So only when we felt confident we had everything we needed we finished shooting.

Car Location Problems

A vlog talking about the location of the car and some problems we had.

Filming The Thriller

We filmed using Scarlett's brother's camera and tripod. We used Megan's Dad's car, a room in Megan's Dad's house and a wood nearby for the poster. We remembered to use a range of shots in each scene so that the film can be well edited and shots can be fitted by what is suited by the scene itself. We were happy with our locations as we think they represented what we wanted for our filming well.

Taking Photos For The Poster

During the whole day of filming, we also took photos for our poster as we wanted our main character in the same costume for the poster as she had in the actual thriller opening. We wanted her to look isolated so decided an extreme long shot would work well for this. We also wanted to include the teddybear to show her innocence.

One of the first locations we tried was on a public footpath but we felt that this didn't look right and that the white line in the middle of it took the attention off of the little girl.

We then searched for some other locations and found a forest that looked like it suited the thriller atmosphere well. We had a look around to see where a good place for the girl to sit would be and found this area.
 

We placed the 'SOLEMN' blocks near the front of the camera so that the title was clear for the audience to read.

Here is the final photo we will be using for the poster. It will have other things such as the rating, slogan,credits etc edited in later.

Risk Assessment

Before filming at a new location we did a risk assessment each time.

Red Room:

Hazard	Why is it a Hazard?	Level of Risk	How we overcame it?
Wooden blocks	Could get splinters	Low	Checked blocks and made sure everything was sanded down
High angle shot	Could drop camera on Jody’s head	Medium	Had 2 people holding and made sure the camera was secured into tripod correctly

Car Scene:

Hazard	Why is it a Hazard?	Level of Risk	How we overcame it?
Having the car moving	None of us can drive, would be focusing on filming	Medium	Parking the car
Parking on the road	Could get in the way of other cars	Low	Parked on the side of the road out of the way

Forest (for poster):

Hazard	Why is it a Hazard?	Level of Risk	How we overcame it?
Wooden blocks	Could get splinters	Low	Checked blocks and made sure everything was sanded down
High angle shot	Could drop camera on Jody’s head	Medium	Had 2 people holding and made sure the camera was secured into tripod correctly

The glass in the forest that was a hazard.

Shooting Schedule

On Saturday 31st March 2012, we will be shooting the whole of our thriller. To ensure that we get everything done, we have created a shooting schdeule which we aim to follow throughout the day. We have also made a table as to who is in charge of what props. We aim to be meeting at 9:00am and finish at around 5:00pm.

Props

Shooting Schedule

Voiceovers

Here is a video of us recording some of the voiceovers we are planning to use in our thriller. We used a microphone to talk into and also slowly sang 'Ring A Roses' as we felt that this song would go well with our thriller as it is an innocent song but we made it sound creepy by singing it slower.

For the actual voices heard in the thriller, we said things like 'We're going to the zoo today' 'Where's your teddy' and 'Happy Birthday Holly' which were meant to be memories of the little girls past life. We overlapped them all to make them sound creepier and as if she's getting surrounded and trapped in her past.

Finding & Creating The Music

To find the music, we searched on http://www.incompetech.com as they provided a range of royalty-free music which we were able to use in our thriller.

We used 2 pieces of music from this website. They were called 'Darkest Child' and 'The House Of Leaves' and were free to download.

We edited these pieces of music together, as well as adding in our voiceovers and 'Ring A Roses' that we had previously recorded. Here is how we edited the music in Sony Vegas. We have marked where each piece of music was put, including the voiceovers. We also muted the sound from the video as we didn't want any of it in the video.

Hair & Make-Up

On the day of shooting, we faced a problem with the make up. When we practised the costume and makeup, Maisie had done the fake bruises for Jodys face. Unfortunately, Maisie was busy the day we needed to film so we didn't have her to do the make up. Instead, we looked at a photo at what she had previously done and tried our best to copy it. Here is what Jody who is playing the main character looked like before the hair and make up had been done.

We used purples and browns to create a black eye look and other bruises on the face.

Here is the finished black eye.

For the hair, we gave Jody an off centre middle parting and put it in two ponytails. We backcombed the ponytails to show that she'd been in a car crash and also add to the thriller atmosphere. Here is the final look.

Practising Hair & Make-up

We practised the make-up for our thriller. The left side shows fake bruises to show she's been in a car accident. The right side is dark make-up to show she's turned dark and evil. We decided to use both of these make-up styles for our thriller. We will use the bruise make-up for the car crash scene and the dark make-up for the shot when she is evil, she will also have red contacts in this scene.

We also tried the make-up with red lips to represent evil and danger, however we felt this didn't look right and there was too much make-up and it looked unatural for a child to wear this so we will use red contacts to represent the danger instead.

We tied up her hair in bunchies to make her look younger and more innocent. The right side is more neat and tidy, this is the hairstyle we'll be using during the car crash, messing it up a bit afterwards to show that she's hurt. The left side is a lot messier and more rough, we will be using this hairstyle whenshe's possessed to show that she's not so cute and innocent anymore. To do this we straightened her hair and tied them up with small hair ties. The left side was then backcombed to get bigger and messier. We will use hairspray to hold it in place when filming so that there is continuity.