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

Looking back to my preliminary task I feel I have learnt a lot of techniques when doing the preliminary for preparation for the main task but i have also learnt a lot in the progression when doing the final product when doing the filming and editing for the main task.

When we started planning our thriller film 'scratch' we didn't find it to difficult as we had a head start as we used our preliminary storyboard which we just developed into our main task by adding more ideas. We then started of thinking and planning about the other aspects of the film such as the title and typography which then progressed to be a important part of our thriller with the 'scratching'.

Once we started planning our opening thriller we then started to look at other thriller productions and different directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese which I found quite difficult in relating the films we looked at and our own idea of 'scratch' as it was very different and hard to compare with the quality or the films we looked at to ours. I think looking at smaller independent films would have been more useful but they are hard to find. However i did think the research on the thriller genre such as watching different films such as vertigo and The talented Mr Ripley, and the planning stage did help when doing our main task as it gave us ideas about the different conventions of a thriller production needs to successful. Researching other thriller films also helped to know what to expect from a thriller and gave us an idea of how to portray our thriller for the main task and preliminary as others similar productions have.

When scripting our thriller we found this fairly easy as we planned to not have any speech in the thriller at all. But after actually planning 'scratch' and then starting to film it over a 6 day period we decided to add a bit of dialogue when the woman walked in and said 'your turn' we thought this helps understand the woman's character more and maybe think she may have killed before? To if there was completely no dialogue at all which may have confused the audience to what was actually happening.

When actually filming out main task we had weather conditions that prevented us from filming so we had to change the dates and times for our shooting the schedule. Our shooting schedule was useful as it helped us remember what we needed for the specific filming time. It also helped what shots and what order to film in.

I think our use of specific shot types has improved even though we did find it difficult at times. We needed to show shots that suited the character and how we wanted to show the character to what he was feeling and portraying. I think the preliminary task did help us for the main task in terms of shot use as we did get to show what we had learnt in the preliminary task such as the 180 degree rule and match on action. We also I think have improved on the thought of point of view which we succeeded in the point of view showing the characters and not what the characters see themselves (third person) which
can be achieved and has been achieved. I feel my partner and
I do feel a lot more confident with the equipment and have
progressed a lot from doing the preliminary task as we have
found out more about the cameras, the equipment, found it
quicker and easier to use and different ways to get the
specific shots we wanted.

I think my partner and I have been successful with researching , planning, filming, editing and evaluating our opening of a thriller called 'scratch'. Looking back at the main task and the main planning blog i feel we have explained and research well in to what we Want to achieve for the end product and have succeeded in doing this.

I have found our end product to be successful and feel like my partner and I have met the brief to a good standard. We within the project task have shown our understanding on different shots, planning, scheduling, storyboarding and development and have made a successful opening thriller called 'Scratch'.

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

The strengths of the camera equipment that we found it quite easy to use the cameras were not to technical. However we did have weaknesses had a few times where the camera equipment was not available we then made alterations to our shooting schedule to fit when we had filmed. The filming process i found okay although we did have problems when doing certain filming e.g.When we was filming the main character, the man walking down a corridor we wanted to give the effect of the camera following the man, we found this hard to actually move the camera behind him as the tripod was no use for this type of shot we needed to achieve.We tried first putting the camera on a piece of cardboard and dragging it along behind the actor this didn't work as it was hard to drag the camera along as the cardboard kept stalling. We then tried to overcome this by finding something that that would move more fluently behind the character so we found a tray trolley and place the camera on it, even though this was very noisy at the time of filming we edited the sounded out to give the effect we wanted.


This enhanced our thriller as it gives us the shot that we wanted of the camera following the character. We also had to use other equipment such as tables to balance the camera to get a certain shot of the part when the main character is sitting at his desk we also did this to try not show different objects within the room we were shooting in as the angle that we tried to film in prevented that. Sometimes we held the camera to our advantage to give a shaky effect. When we edited our filming for our main task on I Movie on the Apple Macs we learnt a lot more about different effects that are possible from when doing the preliminary even though that did help a great deal when editing the first time but not in so much detail.

When editing we found image stabilzation to be a big help as it made the hand held shots look as if they had been on a tripod which made it look effective. There were particular effects that we found useful for creating our overall Mise en scene such, as using speed at which the filming was shown at particulally when the main character was walking at the beginning that we just made faster to fit within the two minutes. We also used a different colour to the original colour of the camera we used a particular colour for the film called old world on the part of the flashbacks, this gave the effect of the flashbacks that we wanted. As a result to our soundtrack we did not use Garage band we used copyright-free music, that we had found from the Internet a website called freeplaymusic.com. We learnt that we had to use copyright music and we need to make sure the soundtrack was around two minutes long this was a challenge but we did find music suitable for our production and ended up liking it very much. We also used sound effects within our film e.g. the gun shot that is used when the main character is shot. To achieve the gun shot effect we first looked on I Movie and the sound effects that may have resembled a gun shot noise, however we did not find the suitable noise for the gun shot we wanted, as a result we had to look on several websites that deliver free sound effects and then found a suitable gun shot effect.

There were times where it was very hard to film as sometimes not any cameras were available when we needed to film or the cameras were given had to have different film to what we had so resulting in us having two different tapes. We also had problems when editing on the mac computers and was worried if this was going to effect the filming process as there were three groups all using the same mac computer. We sorted this by making a rota of what group was going to use that mac computer at what time. This resulted in us editing withing lunch hours etc. to ensure we finished our editing in our time.

Below is a screen shot of how we edited our opening thriller sequence.

5. How did i attract/address your audience?

Within the audience questionnaire we asked how old each person that answered a questionnaire. Out of the 25 people we did ask 13 of them were aged between 14-16, 8 aged between 16-18 and 4 being aged 18+.

We also asked how old they were and their gender. There are particular points in our film that would appeal to a particular age or gender such as at the beginning of the opening sequence would suit the male gender more as it shows only the male character as he is the only character apart from the one time when the woman comes in the room. It also shows the man being angry and mysterious and in his own character which may interest the male gender more than the female gender as males can relate to the character more, however one part of the film when the male main character is shot he then seems passive towards the female character which may affect the gender that watch it but overall i think that the opening thriller would appeal to males.

The audience are asked by the film itself to put themselves in the position of watching the character and not seeing what the character may see (third person), we chose every shot to be in third person and have used the shots to develop the story and being able to see the whole picture. We used several shots that have made an impact on the film as an overall product. The frame of the man walking through the corridor the shot is shown jerky we didn't do this intentionally but we found that it gave it a good effect as it may show the audience how the man is feeling.

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

The age that we certificated for our film has been set as 15-25 year old's as that target audience may understand and may find it more appealing to watch, however we may find flexibility in this e.g. we may find that some teenagers under 15 may watch the film as we know plenty of under 15's watch 15 rated movies, for this reason we have looked at 13-14 year old's that may find our film appealing. I think that viewers a little over the age of 25 or an age of a person who can understand the flashbacks of the particular time period will find the film appealing as the style of the film is partly shown through flashback. The reason why we chose that particular target audience of 15+ as a lot of thriller film's that are released are 15+ and do normally appeal to this age and older.

There are some points of our film that it would appeal particularly to the male gender as it shows only the man and it shows him being angry and very in his own character so we would have thought this would have appealed to the male gender more so even though he does have weaknesses where the male is shown in a passive way towards the woman which is very dominant when shown, which may not appeal to the audience as much, because the opening is very much about a male we thought the target audience of males may appreciate this more. When given the audience questionnaires back it was clear to Adam and I that mostly 16-18 year old's had watched and commented on our film as we targeted this whereas 18+ and 14-16 was much lower in our result so the age that we have picked will appeal to that age range more and the questionnaires have helped us conclude this.

We didn't particulary choose this particular target audience as we didn't know what target audience to prioritise for our film. We didn't pick our target audience until much later than the other groups may have, and then when editing we made sure that appealed to our target audience. I think we picked this certain target audience as a lot of thriller films are certificated to this age group and are most popular with this age group. This then attracted us to make a film for them as we thought it could be successful.

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

The type of media institution that might distribute our media product 'scratch' would be by a smaller independent company which would be selected for a few cinemas and then become a bulk of dvd's this would be simular to an independent film called Paranormal activity which was released only to a few cinemas and then gained a massivley across the US and became distributed by paramount across the globe then being the most profitable film ever made grossing over $140million. This is what we would like to happen for our thriller film 'scratch'.

Our questionnaire support our decision as out of the 25 people we asked 13 people said they would watch this type of film in the cinema, 5 people said they would on television and 7 people said they would on DVD. These results did help us to think about how to produce the film. We then thought If we streamed the film over the internet then more people may see it and then order the dvd after to see the rest of the film that we could script and develop more into the story of 'killing' With the film being popular we could use this to our advantage and use a whole brand set up with video games and merchandise.

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

The social groups represented in my thriller are clearly shown throughout the opening sequence. Age is a big concept. Within the opening sequence it shows old charateristics throughout the location and the whole layout of the film as we wanted an old effect for the location. We also tried to make the character seem quite older from the actor's atcual age through his acting and what he does when acting as the male character we want to show the actor within the film as a white middle class male. Also the music that is played in the background would maybe suit a more older, 'sophisticated' person and show that we are representing an older person as it is Mozart and this type of music may appeal to that generation, even though alot of aspects of the film would suit an older person we have targeted our auidence for 15+ and will think that Gender is represented in a stereotypical way as the way man acts as he walks fast and shows anger shows a masculine side to him.

As he enters the room and the sees the note as sitting down it then changes to the opposite to a stereotyped man, as he shows fear from body language, movement and facial expressions. When standing up from hearing the gun shot the viewers see a shadow of a person it may not be known that it is a woman until she speaks, saying 'your turn'. This shows an opposite side of the stereotypical man as he had got very nervous and then had gotten shot by a woman which would show the woman being dominant and the man being passive which is not normally the stereotypical way.

In a way the stereotypes within the opening of the thriller link to the target audience as we are putting the certificate at an age of 15+ but we also think that the film will suit older people too, However we both think a younger audience below the age certificate may may watch it. In another way the stereotypes in the thriller may be challenged in relation to the target audience I think that the film would be more stereotyped towards the male gender but this may be challenged as the male gender are seemed as very passive as the main character (a male) is shot by the woman later in the sequence.

Our questionnaires state that 14 of the 25 people were male, and 11 were felmale. This shows that it was nearly equally split and shows the both sides to the dominant male and the passive side of the male which here then realtes to the audience questionaire. With the age range we asked the results came back with 13 being aged between 14-16, 8 aged between 16-18, and 4 were aged 18+.We were aiming for 14-18 and we have achieved this aim.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product, does incorporate generic conventions In the first scene/frame, of the main character walking builds up to the action it may keep the audience tense and on the edge of their seats as in the first frame of the character being shown it shows only the back of the main character and of him harshly walking away from the camera through a corridor, also this in this frame it shows a realistic setting of a school this may create a sense of 'the unusual' occurring within a normal setting as the character is acting different and unusual to what someone would act within a school. Our thriller opening shows flashbacks as it is a big part of the opening. It shows the present when showing the credits and then shows the 'flashbacks' of the main character within the school. It shows the presents credits by having colour within the shot and when showing flashbacks it changes to an old world effect that we have created by editing on the macs. We also used the convention of covering the killers face when they walk into the room, this will make the audience interested and then benfit later on in the film as to different suspect of atcually who the killer is. The creation of suspense using soundtrack is used as the music is very loud very unexprected and the auidence may start to notice the music being really dominanant and therfore create a particular athmosphere of the main character being angry or upset etc. when the main character is walking down the stairs when the high- angled shot is shown. In the frame of the main character walking into the room it shows Twists and unexpected turns. This is shown becasue so far the audience had not been given much information to what is happening until when the man is in the room and gets the piece of paper saying 'You are next' thats when the story really starts and the twist and turns begin. I dont think that the conventions within my thriller could represtent it as a sub-genre as it has different conventions not particular ones to suit one sub-genre, just general conventions which would be found in a thriller. However if it was to be a sub-genre type thriller i would think it would be a Drama-type thriller.



Some of the conventions that are shown within our thriller opening indicates an infulence that we have had from other thrillers. For example the use of flashbacks that we have used, shows this in the talented Mr ripley but we have used this idea and made it different and our own such as making effects to make it look like a visable flashback.