Reaction shot and jump cut.
Jump cut is when you miss out parts of a scene, this makes the scene go quicker and therefore keeps the suspense alive. A jump cut is a transition between two shots which appears to "jump" due to the way the shots are framed in relation to each other. This is a popular technique used in thriller films as it not only builds suspense it also maintains it keeping the viewer very interested.
In our thriller film we filmed Elizabeth putting her tights on, however at one point in the film you see her putting on her tights on one foot and then it cuts out and switches to her putting the tights on her other foot.
Reaction shot.
This is when a persons reaction to a particular event is filmed, the reaction is usually fimed before the viewer sees the event take place this creates a sense of mystery. It is usually a close up, which creates tension. In our thriller film we have used a reaction shot with Patrick, it is a close up of his face and he is looking very worried. However the viewer doesnt quite understand why he is worried therefore building suspense.
Developed
Before we started to film, we looked at various different music pieces to include in our film. As we have the theme of romance we wanted to use sounds such as piano in order to set the scene more. We also needed to find a piece of music that built tension, this helped to create an suspicious atmosphere for the viewer and builds tension.
For film makers, music is always a very important part of the making of the film, it helps to establish the scene and create an atmosphere. Music is not only very important in thrillers but in all genres of films.
Dialogue
Before the filming of our thriller we did alot of research into the dialogue in thriller films. From the research we concluded that the thrillers without any dialogue were more successful in creating tension and building suspense, so the opening of our film we have not used any dialogue.
Challenged
Throughout the filming of our media piece, i feel that we were challenged in many areas in order to make our opening scene as successfull as possible.
Storyline
With our storyline i feel that we took alot of risks in order to make our thriller exactly how we wanted. We tended to not follow the crowd with the typical thriller storylines such as rape, murder, kidnap etc and instead we tried to make something different to the more sterotypical thrillers. The aim from our storyline was to try and keep the audience guessing throughout, therefore creating alot of suspense and tension. We had some problems with this, such as finding an actress that would act as a prostitute, but once we had overcome such problems, I feel that our media could be very successful.
Actress
As we tried to stay away from the sterotypical media films, we decided to have a women as the main actor in our film. This was very controverisal as in mainly all thrillers, men tend to dominate the main role. Using a women for our main role meant that it appealed to a wider range audience, such as woman would want to see it, as it is an actress leading and males would also enjoy the sexual element to it.
Lighting
When filming we had to decide whether to film at night or during the day. Generally thrillers are filmed at night to create that scary atmosphere. However because of our storyline we decided to film during the day, this also increased the quality of filming as the cameras we use work better in the daylight.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our thriller film is mainstream as we have aimed it at a mass audience rather than niche. Men will enjoy this film as it has quite a strong sexual element to it, however women will also enjoy this as a female character is the most dominate role in the film. We have looked at films with similar themes and have found which companies distributed them. Salt is a recent film starring Angelina Jolie, this also has an actress as the main character. Salt was distributed by Coloumbia Pictures and Sony Picture Releasing. We also looked at another film where a woman plays the most dominate part, Kill Bill also has this element to it, this was distributed by Miramax films.
One of the companies we choose to go with that we may use to distribute our film was Miramax, this company also uses a lot of technological convergence, one example of this is that they have recently decided to explore the blu-ray market. The text below is taken from Miramax's blog;
"Blu-ray also offers interactive features that can (and should) be a portal to new downloadable content and algorithmic search, so consumers can sample and buy additional films from the Miramax library. In the not-so-distant future, consumers will be able to go a step further and upload their purchased Blu-ray/DVD content via the “cloud” into their own personalized and fully accessible “digital locker” (roughly equivalent to having one’s own personalized TiVo with no storage constraints)."
This is an example of technological convergence. This is very useful for our film as it would come across as much better quality. This would empathasise on the clothes she is wearing, the brightness of her lipstick etc. Also because our film will be released in the near future it is very important to keep up to date with new technologies such as blu-ray.
Kill Bill has released a sequel, as our film has a similar theme to this we also have the oppourtiunties to make another film to follow "Dangerously in Love'.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
An ideal audience for our media piece is a middle aged woman, who is of a high class. Tracy, has lived in London since she was about 20. She works for a well known lawyer firm. Tracy has been travelling when she was younger and also got a degree at University.
In her spare time Tracy visits her parents in Essex, where she rides. She enjoys many exotic holidays throughout the year, she has just recently returned from a week in the Caribbean. Tracy also likes to relax at the end of the day by watching a film, she enjoys a wide range of films especially Thrillers. Tracy tends to watch Thrillers where a woman is very dominant, such as Kill Bill and Salt.
Tracy takes a lot of care in her flat in London, she is very interested in new technologies and keeping up to date with the modern world. She owns a iphone and an ipad. She also owns a Mac from which she can work at home, as her job is very important to her.
How did you attract/address your audience?
We had a few ideas and techniques that we wanted to add into our film so our audience were more attracted to it. Firstly we hardly gave anything away in the film for example we did not see clear links between people and nothing partiularly happened. Secondly we added extra props in so the audience little parts of the film for example prostitutes outfit, her ring being taken off or the money. Thirdly we added in music that built tension. Fourthly we did a lot of cross utting so the audience would get a bit confused.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of contructing this product?
Throughout this part of the AS media course i feel i have learnt and developed many skills. Whilst filming the opening scene of dangerously in love i have learnt many new skills.
Camera.
One of the main things i used during the filming was a camera. We used a cannon camera, before filming the opening scene of dangerously in love, we filmed a premliminary task, throughout this i learnt how to start filming and how to pause, i also learnt how to zoom in and zoom out. This also taught us how to hold the camera steady whilst filming. Filming the premliminary task helped to build confidence in using the cameras which was useful when filming out final opening scene. However i still learnt many more new skills such as how to film a reaction shot, when filming our final piece.Tripod.
We used the tripod for some parts of our filming, this helped us to keep the camera very steady making it look much more professional. I learnt how to attach the camera to the tripod and was then able to move it horizonatlly and vertically. This piece of equipment caused quite a few problems sometimes as it was sometimes too short or to tall to film certain aspects of the film.Blogging
Blogging has become a big part of this media AS course. This is where the group can keep up to date as to what work is being done. It is also a way of me showing how i am working throughout the course. To start with i created an account on Blogger, i then learnt how to make new posts, edit posts, copy pictures and link web addresses to the post as well.
Once i was familiar with all these skills i then learnt how to tag my posts which helped members of my group and my teachers to see what work i had done. I also learnt how to embed codes into the posts which enabled me to be able to have videos in my posts.
Macs
Macs were a very new thing to me before i started media. I have learnt a lot about Macs during this part of the AS media course.
At the start i found it very hard to use, as i was used to a normal computer. But after a couple of weeks i found myself very familiar with the macs.
Final Cut Express
Final cut express is a programme that we used a lot during the editing of our opening scene. This programme on the macs allowed you to add music over the top, add in special effects, cut buts out and many more. I feel i have learnt a lot from using Final cut express and am now fully confident in using it.
Youtube
I had to learn how to create and manage a youtube account as we needed to upload our preliminary tasks and final video to youtube. This helped a lot as we had very quick access to the video, simply going on to youtube and searching for the video. This also made it easier to get onto our blogs as we just copy and pasted the link into the post. We also used youtube in a lot of our background research, and when we needed examples of videos from thrillers already made, we could just copy and paste the links into the post.
Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product.
Doing our preliminary task was really helpful as it gave us a practice run to learn everything that goes with filming. We learned how to;
- Cameras- We were a bit wary of using the cameras when we did our preliminary task as we had not used them before. After filming it we had a basic knowledge of how to use them and all the different aspects. We progressed a lot as we carried on doing research into different ways of using the camera and also when we did practice filming to see how it looked.
- Time- When we did our preliminary we were not aware of how long to spend on the task. When starting our film we realised that to get the best footage we had to control our time better and always do extra film so we had enough to edit.
- Sound- When filming our preliminary we did not realise how much sound the cameras pick up so in that you can hear laughing, breathing and moving. So when it came to our film we realised that we had to cut the sound out completly and cover it with music.
- Lighting- Looking back at the preliminary task we realised straight away that the lighting was not right for our film as it was very light. So that gave us the idea to test out different lights for our film opening.
- Uploading- When we did our preliminary task we learnt how to upload the footage using a usb, work out where it goes on the computer, put it on youtube. We were quite familiar with this but having to do it again made us feel more confident about it.
- Editing- We learnt and progressed on editing a film as we did a lot more on our opening than our prelimary such as slowing and speeding up footage, cutting parts out, organising the time, usingfinal cut express better.
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