When I think about our media production, I feel we have kept the codes and conventions of a ‘Thriller’ to create our short film. The first thing we thought about was our locations. We realised the first half had to be in an enclosed area so we could show the ‘trapped’ feel to the film. Our first location is a kitchen. We chose this kitchen as it is white and this gives an irrefutable clinical setting. Everything in the kitchen is white, this gives it a cold clean feel to it and when we jump to Megan scrubbing the floor, this immediately shows the OCD in her, one of many disorders yet to discover. I’m glad we chose this getting instead of the bedroom, as this would have looked too ‘normal’. The house is semi-detached on a council estate in Whitehouse, Ipswich , this looks like the sort of house Megan would have as it looks like a place of melancholy.
Our second location was the town of Felixstowe
The costumes were very cleverly thought out, we put each characters personality into their clothing, for example, ‘Charlie/Devil’ wears a black cardigan and a red top throughout the film, her costume does not change as this represents the death, malicious and cupidity of the character. Her make-up was set to be the femme fatale look with the black eyeliner and the bright red lips; also the blonde hair is part of the femme fatale look. ‘Katherine/Angel’ is wearing purple cardigan and white top. Purple represents honour and nobility and white represents purity and gives an ‘angelic’ look. The main character Megan is wearing contrasting colours which show her opposing personalities. The rubber gloves in the kitchen scene show the native responsibilities of a woman in a house.
The choice of music was very cleverly thought out. The song at the beginning gives the audience the false effect of a drama. The song is ‘Fuera Dal Mondo’ by Ludovico Einaudi, this is a soft melody with no lyrics, and this just helps the audience to get their mind to set the controversial theme of the film. When the second half of the film comes in, we merge the track with the thriller theme music. The image of Megan opening the boot of the car was timed well with the music, this makes the audience realise she is evil. Some of our sound had been manipulated to suit of genre better. For example, the sound of the wind on the beach was amplified as the loudness made it seem more intimidating.
The camera shots used in our film highlighted the codes and conventions very well. For example, using dominant and submissive shots to the characters creates misleading personality recognition. Throughout the first half of our film, Megan had been shown through submissive shots, it gave the impression Megan was the victim. By doing this, an enigma was created until the very end of the film. The first time Megan is shown in a dominant shot is at the point you realise she has locked her boyfriend in the boot of her car, this is where the true story comes out for the audience to realise what has happened, also, this is the first time you get a good look at her face as we kept her hidden for the first two minute of the film. We did this by using close ups and extreme close ups with fast past edits.
A lot of tight framing was used throughout our film to show the stress of Megan’s life. In every shot in the first half, Megan is constantly surrounded by objects and people who make the space seem so constricted. For example, when Megan is pouring fairy liquid into a bowl, Charlie/Devil is placed directly in the centre of the shot and you can just see Megan’s hands. These are perfectly placed so you can see Charlie/Devil’s face and it makes the audience listen to the quote of ‘use bleach; bleach gets out everything’. This also shows this quote as being important throughout the film and the effect it has on Megan really shows as she slowly puts her hands down. Another is the scrubbing scene; she is trapped between the washing machine, the cooker and Catherine/Angel. This helps the audience realise her struggles with ordinary life and her disorders. Another scene is
The lighting from the start to the beginning helped set the mood of the film. We chose to film on cloudy days to make the lighting seem dull and lifeless. The kitchen scene had the blinds closed to shut out any daylight. The orange tint to the blind gave a great lighting effect which seemed bizarre and inaccurate.
The dialogue to our film was carefully thought out. The first word you hear from Megan is ‘shit’ so this immediately makes it a film for adults. Most Thrillers are certificated 12 and above due to language used. The dialogue on the beach slowly faded out to make the audience think about what’s being said, we know what the conversations are about but this gives the audience time to connect with the characters. It also gives the impression of Megan’s head just blanking out the advice as she is so stuck on what to do. The dialogue in the second half gets repeated. We changed some of the voices to coincide with her illness. As the voices get more overlapped, you struggle to hear what they are saying. The final words you hear is the quote of ‘use bleach; bleach gets out everything’. With hearing this for the final time, the image of Charlie/Devil comes into the audiences head to make them think about what decision is going to be made.
During the editing of our film, we experimented with all the different tools we could use. Slow motion was used on the beach scene of the three characters looking out to sea to make the scene more emotional to the audience. This was inspired by ‘This is England
The titles of the film flow between the wave’s scene and the scrubbing on the floor scene. The scrubbing on the floor has been slowed done to make the pulse of the waves; this idea was one of mine as I got it from the book ‘THE Waves’ by Virginia Woolf. The font is white with black outlines; this shows the boldness of the title and the importance it has to the film.
Overall, I feel we tried very hard to keep the codes and conventions of a Thriller to a maximum. As well as in our film, we needed to keep the codes and conventions in our film posters too.
My film poster was created to let the audience know about the film being released as a DVD. My poster has a modest design but holds a creative aspect.
I started with the image of our main character from a side view, the background is completely black and some what looks like a mug shot in a police station. With using a plain black background, I’ve given the audience the idea of it being dark and sinister without giving too much away.
With the text, I tried to follow the codes and conventions by the order of which the names are placed. The most important is always at the top in the largest font, normally starting with the director and film/distribution companies. The actor’s names are following this but in a slightly smaller font. These are sometime listed in popularity or alphabetical order. My information at the bottom is set in a diamond shape, just like other film posters.
The text used is plain white which contrast form the black background. The font is a typical thriller looking font with the scratched effect. The scratched effect helps target our audience and helps make the poster look professional.
Our tagline of ‘Be careful who you listen to…’ leads the poster towards the thriller genre, as the words seem frightening and shows its audience is clearly adults and not for children.
I believe I have kept to the correct codes and conventions to create a film poster quite well. My research into film posters has helped me a lot with this.
When writing my own film review, I used my research from other film reviews to help me with this. I wanted to make my unique but to still have the codes and conventions within my review.
My film review starts with a brief summary, like many film reviews, this helps the audience to have a quick understanding of what the film is about and to decide whether it’s for them or not. The information of the running time and the director is also vital in this part of the review. I told the audience about the double cycle of the film and about the fundamental theme of the film.
Comments that are humorous are often found in film reviews, this helps the reader connect with the writer through a little banter. I have tried to include this in my review, and also quotes from other films such as ‘practically perfect in every way’ when I was describing a technique. As well as funny comments, I have included the positive and negative points of the film. For example the question ‘where did the coats suddenly come from?’ I tried to keep the audience connected with my while reading my review.
The positives are the creativeness from the director and the acting of the characters as this is a low budget film. I also related this to films such as ’Fatal Attraction’, ‘Sixth Sense’ and ‘The Others’ due to the incredible twists featured in all theses films.
As a final point I added my verdict, it was indeed a positive one. I feel I have used the codes and conventions very well in all of my media and I believe I have given a realistic film review that could appear in a magazine.
The positives are the creativeness from the director and the acting of the characters as this is a low budget film. I also related this to films such as ’Fatal Attraction’, ‘Sixth Sense’ and ‘The Others’ due to the incredible twists featured in all theses films.
As a final point I added my verdict, it was indeed a positive one. I feel I have used the codes and conventions very well in all of my media and I believe I have given a realistic film review that could appear in a magazine.
After we had finished our product, we were determined to get some individual audience feedback; we decided to show an audience of 5 pupils. Individually, we chose 3 girls and 2 boys randomly to come and watch our film. I chose to show the film in our sixth form common room, this is because I could use the projector to get the full aspects of the film. The feedback I got varied, from the girls was very positive but form the boys was not quite so positive. The positive comments I got were; ‘the shots were very well filmed as you didn’t see Megan’s face until the second part of the film’ and ‘the music worked really well to confuse the audience and assist the big twist at the end’. Other comments were ‘the actors did very well to play their characters’ and ‘the dizzy effect worked well in the second half’. The negative comments consisted of ‘some of the voices in the second part didn’t seem realistic’ and ‘the coats suddenly appeared from nowhere’.
Although we had negative comments, most of the feedback received was positive, the comments I thought were really helpful as I could use these tips to improve another media production in the future. The audience I chose react exactly how I wanted them to, the girls were feeling and relating to the character Megan, where as the boys were choosing to not relate to her. They were more worried about their girlfriends getting any ideas from the film.
Media is currently a lot more interactive and more digital than it used to be. Due to old media being linear, once a product was finished that was it, not alterations could be made. Nowadays, when a film is made, many alterations can be made. It is never ‘finished’ as you can always go back to make changes. The interactive side in media can be found on television by pressing the red button, this is where you can play games, take part in quizzes and even find out the news and lottery numbers.
Media now has a democracy as even now has the right to make films. The biggest website for hits and views is YouTube. This is a very popular site where people express their talents and hope to get recognised. As this democratisation has been created, the gap between professionals and amateurs has decreased, this is due to the technology being upgraded and more developed so the average person can now make a film nearly as good as a professional. As this is an easy and more common thing to do, so many people are making videos and more people have realised the internet is a good place to get noticed.
Combinations of texts are used to support each other in the final conclusion. When a film is being made, a film poster is created to attract the audience and this helps promote the film and brings in the viewers. The relationship between the film and film poster is very close and positive.
The relationship between a film and its film review can vary, due to the review being positive or negative decides on whether the film will attract or prevent the target audience from watching the film. So both film posters and reviews affect how successful a film can be.
Rupert Murdock has however overcome this problem as he owns 21st Century Fox Studios and many tabloid newspapers such as The Sun, The Times Newspapers and Sky. So when writing film reviews, the newspapers are less likely to write a bad review as he is their boss so their job could be on the line. This now shows not all film reviews are reliable and accurate. Viral reviews that come from normal people are a lot more honest as what reason do they have to lie?
When carrying out my research for my media project, my primary source of research was the internet. I used many websites such as Google and YouTube to research Short Films, how they are created and all about media. We used mobile phones to get in contact with each other to arrange meeting times and dates. For the construction of our film, we used digital cameras and the editing software on the computer to edit all of our film together. For my evaluation and all information on my product, I used the blog site Blogger to post all my information on my media project.
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