The key to any film from any genre is the opening sequence. The opening sequenceof a thriller tells the audience a lot about a film whilst giving its plot and characters an enigmatic entrance. If it is made following the industry's conventions the opening sequence tells you the name of the studio, the name of the production company, who the producers are, who the director is, who is starring in the film, who created the music and what the film is called. We are also told indirectly what the genre of the film is and what the film could possibly be about. In my research I identified some main conventions of opening sequences of thrillers. The conventions that I found were that it established the plot, created enigma, built up tension and attracted the audience (http://gs52011.blogspot.com/2011/02/conventions-of-thriller.html). I looked at three opening sequences from three different films; Se7en By David Fincher 1995, Panic Room By David Fincher 2002, Psycho By Alfred Hitchcock 1960 and Vertigo By Alfred Hitchcock 1958 (http://gs52011.blogspot.com/2011/02/thriller-research.html , http://gs52011.blogspot.com/2011/02/thriller-research-continued.html , http://gs52011.blogspot.com/2011/02/thriller-research-continued_07.html). Whilst most of them contained most, if not all of the conventions that I listed there was one opening sequence that differed from the rest; Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock. Unlike all of the other sequences this one did not establish the plot as it had no plot visuals in it. It mostly contained titles to attract the audience and music which gives away the genre and adds enigma to the film. After further research into it I found that this could be due to the time it was made in and the lack of technology during this time. My media product uses these conventions to gain the attention of the audience. Through my visuals I established the plot of the paedophile as the antagonist seeking his next victim on his list and the innocent girl as the antagonist. The visuals do not give away a large amount of the plot and thus gives the thriller an enigmatic feel. The music which I made specifically for the intention of this film consists of fast strings and a heavy base to createtension for the audience. Lastly I have created titles to advertise everything that would normally attract the audience; the name of the production company, who the producers are, who the director is, who is starring in the film, who created the music and what the film is called.
Question 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I do not believe there are many media products in the mainstream film industry that represent particular social groups in their plot unless a message is attempting to be conveyed, for example, Boyz n The Hood by John Singleton 1991 represented the social group of South Central Los Angeles African American gangs and conveyed the message of peace to the world. My media product does not convey a message and I do not think it represents any social group but if it were to apply that concept I believe that it would represent young families and the fear that parents feel of not constantly being able to protect their children from the horrors of the modern world. My media product focuses on children and their vulnerability. To convey this I had to get the casting of the actors right so that it made the victim seem extremely vulnerable. My protagonist is a murderous paedophile who preys on young children. To make the protagonist, the child had to seem extremely vulnerable compared to the antagonist who had to seem inescapable and so when I cast my characters I was looking for a middle aged man that had a fairly big build. I cast Nicholas Chawner as my antagonist as he has a big build and is middle aged. I didn’t have to be very specific with this character because not a lot of him is seen throughout the opening sequence to keep with the convention of enigma. My antagonist is a young girl who is the "victim-to-be" of the film. I chose the character to be a girl because, stereotypically speaking, the female gender is seen to be the weaker sex and so making the character a girl adds to the vulnerability against the antagonist who is male. She had to be of a small build and she had to look young so that she is the opposite of the antagonist in every way thereby exaggerating the fact that he would be inescapable.I chose Elena Bowley as she is of a young age and small build and thus is perfect for the role of my protagonist.(http://gs52011.blogspot.com/2011/02/casting-location-costume-and-props.html) Similarly the film, Along Came a Spider By Lee Tamahori (2001), also is about a vulnerable young girl who is kidnapped. The girl chosen for this film is also of a small build. They have done this to emphasise the girl's vulnerability, just as I have.
Question 3- What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I think that my media product would be distributed by New Line Cinema because the film Se7en by David Fincher was used as my inspiration for this project and it was distributed by New Line Cinema. My media product was made using the inspiration from that film and thus it has a similar style to it, this is the reasoning behind my choice. New Line Cinema started in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne. It has distributed an enormous variety of films in its time. It also created a lot of thrillers, i.e. Final Destination By David R. Ellis (2009), Snakes On A Plane By David R. Ellis (2006) and A History of Violence By David Cronenberg (2005). Originally New Line Cinema did not distribute films outside the U.S. Instead it would contract with other distributing companies to distribute it's products overseas. More recently it made a more permanent contract with Warner Brothers to distribute over seas. I think that with the other range of films that it has distributed my film would ft in quite comfortably with the other films as they don't distribute too many thrillers so that there is a competition between them and they don't distribute so little that it would seem to be the odd one out. Economically the distribution company seems to do quite well with thrillers. Two out of the three thrillers I mentioned earlier doubled the amount of money they had to start with in profits. The other broke even. Thrillers distributed by this company appear to do quite well gaining a good amount of profits and would be another reason for being the distribution company for my thriller.
Question 4- Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target audience which my product is aimed at are adults of both genders. I have chosen this because from my research I found that it was mainly adults that watched thrillers because thrillers contain plots that are not suitable for or would not be understood by children. I also chose to aim my product at adults because only adults can understand the fears that a parent has of people who could take advantage of their children. Even if they do not have children of their own they will still remember what it was like for their parents worrying over them and thus when they are watching my media product they could also feel fear and terror for the child character in my media product. My film is quite a general film when it comes to target audiences as the only thing that would specifically define people to watch this would be age. Only adults who really understand the topic of the film would understand it and want to watch it. They would be interested by it because through human nature we are naturally inquisitive and would want to know what is going to happen to the child; Is the antagonist going to kill the child? Will somebody save her? If so who? It is the enigmatic style of the film which will really interest the the large target audience of my film.
Question 5- How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted my target audience through the opening titles. The opening titles attracts the audience because if the media product was produced in a professional film industry then the actors and directors would be "A Listers" and thus they would be in the opening titles as they are much more popular with the target audience. It would draw my audience in because they would want to watch it due to the famous people in it. Se7en By David Fincher (1995) readily advertised it's "A Listers", Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman in their opening titles as they were extremely popular at the time.
I addressed my audience because of the plot and how the audience relate to it. Then plot is about a murderous paedophile that is stalking his next victim to be a child, aged eleven years old is. They can relate to how they fear for their own children’s safety and how this would be a parent’s worst nightmare. Adults who don't have children can also relate to the film as they could emphasise with the child and how fearful it must be. Furthermore adults do not have to be parents to relate to the fear that the child's parent might feel as it is possible that they are a sibling to a brother or sister and could relate to the fear they might feel for them. To get the full views of the audience I sent them an email containing the link to my film. I asked them to evaluate it. The thing that they enjoyed the most was the music. They said that they enjoyed how it was fast paced and full of heavy base which they said gve it a threatening effect suitable for the film. They said that to improve it they would change the last shot as it gave the impression that the girl was already dead when she is supposed to be the next victim and still alive. This made it confusing for them.
Question 6- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
During the process of making my media product I have learnt and developed many techniques. Whilst I was filming I developed my knowledge of the equipment that was available to me. I used a Canon SX 30is camera. I used this camera because it is a HD camera that shoots in a widescreen format which gave the product a professional cinematic feel and quality. The two main techniques which I learnt about was how to make the music with a program called Cubase 6 and how to edit the footage with Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. When I shot my footage of the antagonist I used a colour saturation of black and white to create the negative effect of the antagonist.
Making the music for my product was the hardest technique to master in the entire product because first of all I had to learn how to use the software and also I had to find the right sound out of thousands of sound files that I could choose from. The first thing I did was to listen to my examples, Panic Room By David Fincher (2002) and Bourne Identity By Doug Liman (2002), that I was taking my inspiration from. I chose those films as my examples because they had the right fast paced, tension creating rhythm and strings which I needed for my own film. The way that the software worked was that I selected a specific file of sounds and those sounds were transmitted to a keyboard which was connected to the computer. Then I would simply play with the sounds on the key board until I found a pattern that I liked. I then recorded it and then edited it by moving the notes that look like little red bars, to the left or right to get the timing right and up or down to get the pitch right. The sound files that I chose are called Metallic Guitar and Secret Spy. The file Metallic Guitar gave me the screechy sounds which gave a tense feel to the music. I used the Secret Spy file gave me the strings and the base which gave an overall building up of tension feel to it. When editing my product there were two audio tracks. One of the audio tracks contained the audio from the footage and the other contained the music. I muted the audio from the footage because i think that it took away from the sinister feel of the film. I enjoyed using Cubase 6 very much as it allowed me to create my own music to the way that I liked it for every single part of my product. It also was a lot easier and simpler to make my own music rather than to waste time having to search for someone who will give me permission to use their music. 
The next technique I had to learn was how to edit my footage to create my product using Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. This was very difficult for me as I had never edited anything before this project. It took some time but once I got the hang of what each tool did and where I would find each tool it became a lot easier to use. Thankfully I only needed to use basic techniques like how to create a straight cut and how to add effects onto my clips so there was not too much to learn. To cut my first clip I had to find where I wanted to cut my clip, then I selected a tool that looks a little bit like an eraser and selected with it where I wanted to cut my clip. Then I selected the selector tool, the little arrow, selected it and pressed delete. To add effects I simply had to go into the effects folder and drag the effect that I had chosen to where I wanted it on my footage. Once I got used to the software I actually found that it was quick and easy to use and when used properly it gave me a product with a high quality finish.
Question 7- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in progression from it to the full product?
The next technique I had to learn was how to edit my footage to create my product using Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. This was very difficult for me as I had never edited anything before this project. It took some time but once I got the hang of what each tool did and where I would find each tool it became a lot easier to use. Thankfully I only needed to use basic techniques like how to create a straight cut and how to add effects onto my clips so there was not too much to learn. To cut my first clip I had to find where I wanted to cut my clip, then I selected a tool that looks a little bit like an eraser and selected with it where I wanted to cut my clip. Then I selected the selector tool, the little arrow, selected it and pressed delete. To add effects I simply had to go into the effects folder and drag the effect that I had chosen to where I wanted it on my footage. Once I got used to the software I actually found that it was quick and easy to use and when used properly it gave me a product with a high quality finish.
Question 7- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in progression from it to the full product? Looking back at my preliminary task I have learnt a lot even on just how to blog properly. I realise now that I have to write what I have done and why I have chosen to do that in a lot of detail. When I first worked on the preliminary task I found that it was hard keeping the group together and chasing down bits of missing work and so in this project I decided that I would just work with one other person so that it was easier to track down pieces of work if they were missing. It also meant that I could work more closely with my partner so that we could produce the best work possible. In the preliminary task although everybody worked together and the work was shared equally because there was so many of us certain roles had to be delegated to certain people. I think that my time management has improved significantly since my preliminary task. In my preliminary task we left everything untill the last minute and it was very stressful. I learnt from that and begun doing everything when it was set and as soon as possible. This meant that it was less stressfull and I had time to go back and make sure everything was as good as it could be. I had to do the role of the director; making sure that everyone delivered work on time and to the best of their ability, rounding up everybody’s ideas and putting them into play and to delegate the roles. Due to this I did not really get to try to edit and to shoot the footage and thus my skills were not very developed but since then in my thriller project I have been a lot more hands on and have done a lot of the editing and filming. I have also done more than I would have got to have done on the first project I made the music. I believe that working in a group of two has allowed me to have the benefits of shared labour on the project without missing out on the technical aspects and therefore I have learnt how to basically edit a project, make the music for a media product, shoot footage for my product.
This is a video to show the basic editing skills that I have learnt during this project.
