In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Thriller conventions are elements which frequently occur within the genre that have allowed producers to understand the perspective of the audience and repeatedly create a tense atmosphere that keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. They are used to achieve certain affects on the audience; For Example in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, the shots repeatedly return to an angled up shot of the shower-head, this not only inserts the audience in Marion's place, but also looks very much like an eye examining the camera and Marion. All thriller conventions are intended to make the audience feel uncomfortable, tense, just like the main character might be at that point, creating a homology between the audience and the character, so the audience cares when something happens to that character, pulling them into the plot and keeping them interested, as is summarized by Mulvey's theory of 'screen surrogates' and Lucan's mirror.   Conventions can be applied to all aspects of a film, including: setting, characters, props/costumes and structure. I will comment on all these aspects of my thriller opening and how my group and I created a thriller opening that followed, developed and even challenged many thriller genre conventions.

The setting of our thriller opening, in the story, was in 'the girl's' house. However, in reality we used Kristy's house. There were a number of reasons for this decision; we all live relatively close together, so transport was not a problem, she had a very old grandfather clock that we felt would add the sense of time running out and she also had a small enclosed office space that we felt would be perfect for shooting 'the stalkers' shots. Artistically we also felt that Kristy's house worked well as a setting for where Hannah lives, this was because most furniture was neutral and quite, so as not to pull attention away from the plot.  A continuing theme found in many thriller films is voyeurism (sensation of being watched). For example in films like Watchmen, Voyeurism is reflected in the weather; there is an almost constant cover of rain and cloud, which suggests a presence, other than the audience, watching every scene. It could also be seen as an example of pathetic fallacy, because it could reflect one of the character’s moods (for example when the silk spectre goes out to dinner and is depressed because she knows something is changing between her and Dr Manhattan.) However it could also be seen as a way of foreshadowing the earth shattering events that will occur latter in the film (for example, when you think about it rain drops hitting a surface look very similar in shape to the craters left by the fake attacks of Dr Manhattan.) this adds to the tension of the scene. In our thriller opening we also created a sense of voyeurism, but instead of using weather we used darkness. In our shots of 'the stalker' using the computer we purposefully made the screen the only light source. this restricts the audiences vision and stops them from seeing 'the stalker' making him an invisible threat, much like the 'other presence' in Watchmen. This sense of being watched by something you yourself cannot see is much more threatening than a known visible threat.

Because the structure of our thriller opening switches between Hannah (our main character) and the "stalker" we had to make connections between the two, so that the opening flowed and the audience could instantly tell that the actions of one, in a manner of speaking, affects the actions of the other. For example, when the "stalker' is looking up Hannah's address on Google maps, and on street view looks closely at what we assume is her bedroom window, making it seem as if he is watching her, we

cut to a close up of Hanna's eye, making another reference to being watched; not only continuing the thriller convention of voyeurism but also linking the two shots, allowing the plot to flow. We also made links between scenes using colour semiology (which also follows thriller conventions.) For example, the pen that the "stalker" uses to circle his victims face, this instantly causes the audience to think back to the shots in which we see his past victims with large red crosses over their pictures, suggesting what fate has in store for Hannah, soon afterwards we mimic this ominous red pen with Hannah's spilt red nail vanish. Not only does the semiology of the colour red link to anger blood and violence (suggesting once again Hannah's fate) but it also links the two separate parts of the opening together; the reason we did this was to suggest that after this opening the two characters meet and the girl is attacked, so by making constant connections between the two, we foreshadow the idea that their two future affect one another.

As well as taking into consideration all the possible thriller conventions that could be incorporated into our thriller opening and following them when suitable, we have challenged one or two when we felt it would work to our advantage. During editing, in our very first cut, we did not include any transitions because we felt it would be more effective cut in fast little pieces, this style is something that we had observed in other thriller openings that we had analyzed. However, our fist cut was 3:45 which was hugely over our time limit of two minuets, so after considering different ways in which we could reduce the length, we decided that we could do this on a large scale by placing transitions in the middle of long shots in which the middle section was not required. For example the low angled shot in which Hannah steps out of the shower picks up a towel, walks to the door and drops the towel just before she walks out of the door. We felt the section in which she walks to the door was unnecessary as it was obvious that this had happened as long as we showed the end of the shot. So by placing transitions in our opening we have challenged a thriller convention, in a small way separating ours from the usual.

It could be said that the characters of our thriller opening follow exactly thriller conventions and traditions; our victim is a young weak girl, unable to defend herself, against a large man, who is the attacker. It is a continuous trait of thriller movies that the victim is a woman. It is easy to see how this came about; women are smaller generally in stature than men, making them easy targets for men. It is also a trait in real life; the majority of rapes tend to be men attacking women, this trace of reality in this situation makes it the perfect plot element to have in a thriller because the audience can relate to the situation; everyone has heard of someone in the news that has been rapped normally the victim being a young girl. What we have done is simply update the situation from just the victim and the attacker meeting, to the girl being deceived into believing that the person she is going to meet a boy about her age, instead of the stalker in reality. We have made the old fashioned situation much closer to the reality of our modern audience by incorporating the element of the internet and  the deception that can result from social networking; something that our modern audience is more familiar with. This connects with modern social concerns to do with social networking and crime, this involves the audience more and increases anxieties that already exist, increasing the audiences interest in the story and the tension.

The costumes we used also added to the emphasis on the difference between the two characters. Although we only see small sections of the "stalker" at any one time, like

his hands or the side of his face, but the scene in which we see most of him shows heavy clumpy boots and a long rain coat hiding any thing else from view. This costume draws attention to his large and heavy stature, but also tell us something about the character; for example the long coat that he wares hides everything except for his feet, this could show that he is a social recluse, hiding away from society, this is backed up by the amount of time he must have spent making his book. The stark contrast between the characters is particularly shown at the very end of our opening when we place the two shots of he "stalker" and them Hannah going down the stairs, as i have mentioned before the "stalkers" outfit draws attention to his large size, the opposite is true of Hanna's clothes' she wares small delicate shoes with a slight heel, not only does this highlight her femininity but also her youth in comparison the "stalker". So, we used the costumes of both characters to emphasize the conventional set up of young girl as victim, with older man as attacker. However, we also used the costumes to convey certain ideas to the audience through semiology; for example when Hannah zips up her dress in a close up shot focusing on only this movement, the two sides of the zip represent the two characters and their pre-determined "path" and how they interlock. In conclusion there are many ways in which our thriller opening challenges, conforms and develops existing media product conventions.

Changes that have been made due to teacher advice are in red.2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The main siphons through which we convey our representations of social groups in our thriller opening are our characters. Because there are only two characters I will go into as much detail as possible, when discussing the way we intended each character to represent their particular social groups, and consequently how they have actually turned out.

Our main character Hannah is a teenage girl attending college, approximately 17 years old. She isn’t really a classic representation of teenage girls. The most common image depicted of teen girls in films and other media products is of an over excited blonde who spends more time shopping than at school, and is obsessed to the point of distraction with ‘the hottest guy in school’. Although this representation is less than inaccurate in most cases, it has become the stereotype of teen girls. With Hannah we wanted to create a realistic character that almost all other teen girls can relate to and sympathize with. So, she is quiet, restrained and possibly a little insecure. Because there is no dialog throughout our opening there is no way to get more of a clear picture of her personality, but this compliments the feeling that she is one of many of the stalker’s victims, just a face I a sea of faces. It could be argued that there is a little bit of the stereotype teen girl in her; this is shown in the way she is so foolishly trusting of this person she has never met. The stalkers deception is clearly demonstrated when comparing the photo that Hannah looks at on her phone (the boy she thinks she is going to meet) and the calloused old hand that work on constructing the book, (the person she is really going to meet.)

Throughout the opening, we make constant comparisons between the physical stature of the two characters. As you can see the heavy boots and dark trousers of the

“stalker” emphasize his size and strength in comparison to Hannah. Not only this but eh camera angle also makes him seem bigger and more threatening because the camera is angled up towards him like a child looking up to a parent.

Although the camera angle is similar, the

object of the shot (Hannah’s feet) are so dainty and child like already that the effect of the shot has completely changed. The floral pattered tights highlight her

femininity and make her legs look very thin and weak in comparison to the “stalker”. This, along with her foolish actions, could be construed as representing teenage girls as weak, silly and gullible. This representation is also taken a step

further than just showing Hannah to be these things, when the “stalker is flicking through his book looking at all his past victims. Because Hannah is about to become one of them the representation of teen girls that at first was just backed up by her actions, is now much stronger, because all these other girls have done very similar things. Of course, the purpose of all these weak and silly representations of teen girls is simply to make the audience feel scared for her and understand and even share her vulnerability.

Admittedly, by having the young ignorant girl as the victim in our story we have opened ourselves up to the classic damsel in distress representation of women. However, I would argue that it is a tried and tested story line that has proven its self very popular over the years. I would also argue that the audiences of today are no strangers to cutting edge plots that turn the traditions upside down, so our method is slightly more, subtly unusual. And to be frank although Hannah is our ‘main’ character in the opening, if it were to be made in full, then the focus would shift from her to him, the much more complex and interesting character.

Throughout our opening we see very little of the “stalker” allowing the audience to create a picture of their own of what he looks like. This means that each person in the audience creates an image of someone they personally would be scared of, enhancing the threat he poses to Hannah and subsequently the audience. The simple fact that we only see his hands, his feet and once or twice his face in profile suggests that he is a social recluse, hiding away form other people’s eyes. This representation plays on society’s inclination to shun anyone who is not ‘normal’; this makes it easier for the audience to accept him as the ‘bad guy’, because they feel they have no relation to him at all. However, if the film were to continue then I would challenge this and emphasize parts of the “stalker’s” psyche, that the audience might share, playing on the thriller tradition of making the audience feel uncomfortable. If I were to do this project over again I would like to change the “stalkers” mannerisms by making him a seemingly totally normal, sociable person, making the fact that he was the “stalker” a dark secret and a suppressing plot twist Even the term ‘bad guy’ comes from the audience’s predisposition to accept a man as the wrong doer. In the subconscious of the audience this instantly makes him seem abnormal. His character also plays on the classic representation of men as the aggressors, because of their generally superior strength, this is shown as mentioned before especially in his heavy masculine boots.

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

The plot for our thriller opening was not plucked straight from our imaginations, as you might have guessed. The situation we show is a common one, which is often played out in reality. People using false identities on the Internet to deceive people, is a real danger that could affect anyone who isn’t fully aware of the warning signs and possible consequences. So, it could be used to raise awareness of the situation, possibly in the form of a television infomercial, or be shown in schools (as it is mostly young people that are targeted) to stop people falling into the “stalker’s trap.

However, if Fixation was made into a full-length film it could be marketed and sold as a DVD. I feel it would be attractive to wider audiences because it does follow many of the thriller conventions that have proven to be very popular with a wide variety of audiences. It would be quite a dark film that centered around the “stalker’s” exploits, which could change and switch between his perspective and the fourth wall. This would allow the film to really get inside his psyche and understand his motives. I feel this would give the film more of an individual selling point. It might be comparable in some ways to the film Donnie Darko, (for specific film example look at video at the bottom of the post) in which the main character is shown to be quite demented, but also have this strange undeniable logic connecting him to the audience. This could be mimicked in Fixation by using the “stalker’s” obsessive need to collect his victims in his neat book. Going in the opposite direction of the obvious link between the audience and the “stalker” we could make it so that in the full-length version of Fixation, he has a mental illness. This could be reflected in the way that the camera move when filming from his perspective (jerky and panicked.)

When it comes to production companies not many would jump at such a small-scale production with little guarantee of profit without a large input of money. However, companies such as the UK Film Council are well known for providing money for small-scale British films, and have a long record of success.

We have also done distribution of our own, on a very small scale. We posted our final thriller opening onto YouTube, a popular video sharing website. This meant that anyone could watch and comment on our opening, giving us good feedback and possible recognition. As has been mentioned before we also held a small screening at our college of our rough first edits, which also provided us with further informative feedback.

4. Who would be the target audience for your thriller?

As has been mentioned before we have held and open screening of our first rough edited thriller openings. During these screenings we handed out a questionnaire about how successful our opening was, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Because the screening was held at our college the majority of the people we questioned were approximately 17 years old. However, we were happy with this, as we had already identified this age group as the audience we were catering for. Our ‘main’ character (Hannah) is approximately 17 years old; this similarity between the audience and Hannah creates a homology between them, making them sympathize with her.

One of the main parts of the plot is something that most teenagers will be very familiar with, the Internet. Many teenagers use social networking sites such as twitter and Facebook to communicate with their friends, and even talking to people half way across the globe, so in many cases these websites are no bad thing. However, it is only too easy for someone to pretend to be someone they are not, and someone else to believe them. So, people of this age group are more than aware, through stories told between friends or even talks that have been held at their schools, that things like the story depicted in Fixation can and do occur in real life and more often than not happen to people in their age group. Bringing them closer to the story line. Although it may be true that because of this point Fixation will have a greater affect on people in this age group, if it were to be made into a full-length film then older audiences would also be intrigued be the psychological traits being explored in the form of the “stalker”. This second point of interest, is much like the one found in Black Swan, in which the original story is of a ballet dancer striving to be the best (in which only the most devote ballet fans and ballet dancers themselves would be interested) but the psychology that the film explores makes it interesting to a much wider audience.

The psychological thriller is known to be one of the most popular sub genres to the teen audience; so the possibility of Fixation developing into one would certainly fit with our target audience. However, because our plot would be quite complex and tackle some strange psychological ideas, anyone under the age of 14 could quite possibly not have the intelligence or understanding/experience of the human psyche to properly understand Fixation in full.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

One of the main methods we used to attract our audience was to create situations in which they would ask questions. For example, when Hannah is getting ready, without dialog explaining why she is dressing up and where she is going, so the audience begins to wonder these things keeping them watching in order to find the answers to their questions. Because we have no dialog throughout our opening we have created an extremely unexplained situation, in which the audience are made to ask a great number of questions: Why does the stalker do this? How has he gotten away with all of the murders? Who is he? Not only does this careful set up entice the and attract the audience keeping them interested, it also, as any good thriller opening would, makes the audience want to continue to watch beyond the opening into the full film.

We also created a strong homology between the target audience and our main character. Hannah is a young teen girl that is attending college. Our target audience is of approximately 17 years old and, just like Hannah, most likely attending a college or sixth form of some kind. This means that when our target audience watch the opening they will see the similarities in age between themselves and Hannah, they will subconsciously put themselves in her shoes and sympathize with the situation she is in. The result of this is that when they start to see and understand the threat that the stalker poses, the fear that they feel is doubled, because they feel it for Hannah and themselves, because they are aware of the similarities between them and could see them-selves in Hannah’s place. The sense of fear is also added to because they cannot control the situation (the audience knows that when she goes out she will be in danger, but can do nothing to stop her), therefore making them feel helpless and panicked

These techniques have also been proven successful by the positive feedback we received from our rough edit open screening that we held at our college. Because we held it at our college the audience that we got were a perfect sample of our target audience, all 17 to 19 years old. We handed out questionnaires asking numerous questions about the effectiveness of the plot and other aspects of out opening. The feed back was overwhelmingly positive, with people saying it was “exiting” and “creepy”. In order to measure how engaged the audience really was we asked if they felt the title suited the plot of out opening, (in our rough edit the only point at which the title was shown was right at they very end and only for a moment). Surprisingly all except one of the people we asked had noticed and liked the name. Conclusive proof that our opening attracted and maintained the attention of our target audience.

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

In the past I have has a small amount of experience with using digital cameras and tripods, but not with video cameras. However, I soon learnt that the controls were relatively simple, and the knack lay in not recording over something you did earlier. I had slight head start in that I have been using Macintosh computers nearly all my life, so I was confident wen using them and had gotten used to the different key commands. We did all the editing for both our preliminary and final

task on iMovie, using the default settings. I had a bit of trouble with this program, not because of a lack of experience, but because I had done extensive work on an older version of iMovie while doing a past project, this meant that I was used to the old settings. For example on the old version of iMovie the command for split clip was just command shift S, but on the new version it is in the edit menu and the command is different.

We also used other software such as iTunes, into which we downloaded our sound track from free play music. The interface between iMovie and iTunes meant that we could download something into iTunes and it would appear in the side bar menu in iMovie, ready to click and drag into place.

Something else that was new to me was the way in which you import photographs straight onto a shot in iMovie. I attempted this many times by saving the photo I wanted into iPhoto (which like iTunes was compatible with iMovie) then clicking and dragging onto the scene that I wanted. When this did not work I researched it and found that what I was doing was completely correct. By this point I had used up almost an hour trying to put a UK Film Council logo into our opening scenes. So in the end I settled for just typing it in, which I feel fits in much better anyway.

7. Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from one to the other?

For our preliminary task we were asked to produce a short piece of film with an unimportant plot line whilst using as many camera angles and movements as possible. The planning for this task was vey simplistic; we discussed different plots we could use and who would be willing to be in the piece, and which locations we would use. A storyboard was the extent of our written planning. However, we made sure that it was fully made with notes about which camera angles we used and how they would move. Because of this one piece of fairly well done planning, we found filming relatively easy and we had a good amount of footage to edit. The only problem we had when filming was our main actors inability to wear the same clothes on the days that we were filming, this meant that we often had to re film parts in order to maintain continuity. This had a knock on affect on the time we had to edit and in the end we did not have time to find music for our sound track.

The main thing that stayed the same from the prelim task to the final was our method for storyboarding. We started of by coming up with a clear idea that all of us understood and liked then created a shot list, detailing all shots and their camera angles, movements and the reasons for them. We then add these to the bottom of the storyboard clips and add drawings. Although we did not include colour in either of our storyboards we did write about any colour semiology that was important to the scene.

The main thing we changed in the final task was the magnitude of planning that was required. In the prelim task all that was necessary was a storyboard, whereas in the final we needed detailed notes covering the characters, how they

fitted into thriller conventions and endless other pieces of planning that when finished all came together to make filming very easy and problem free. After working together in the preliminary task we knew we could rely n one another and we became much more like a team, trusting each other to do the jobs that we had to do properly. Because there was so much more planning and preparation to do for the final thriller opening, delegation was also something that we had to tackle. In order to reduce the amount of work each of us had to do, one person would often do one thing (the location list for example) and the rest of the team would use this same post for their blog (with the writer’s name on the bottom) and add to it if they needed to. W also did a lot of work together; for example the character summaries were written jointly by Kristy and me, this allowed us to get a much clearer idea of what the finished product would be like, and how we would need to work to create it.

As I have mentioned before the filming for our preliminary task was riddled with problems for many different reasons. However, these problems aside, it should have been very simple; we were filming in one location (the college) which was inside so there were no prospects of being disturbed by changes in the weather, we were filming in our lesson time which meant that we did not have to organize times for our selves. From this we learned that you should never leave anything to chance, if things can go wrong they will go wrong. By the time we got around to the filming of our final thriller opening, we had organized every aspect of it in such fine detail that it went of without a hitch. Something that we failed to take into account when filming our prelim task was the way the natural light change throughout the day; our lessons were at different points during the day, this meant that when it came to editing, many of the different shots that we had filmed at different times but were supposed to be next to each other in the final edit did not fit together properly. So when it got to making the filming schedule for our final piece, we paid close attention to the continuity of light and made it slowly get darker throughout, so that at the beginning it was light early evening, but totally dark by the time Hannah left the house. Once again we filmed inside so that the weather could not interfere and also at Kristy’s house at the weekend, so the time we took to film was flexible.

Because of the problems we experienced in the filming stage during our prelim task our editing was quite rushed. However we didn’t have any problems and finished relatively quickly, this was mostly thanks to the careful storyboarding in our planning, because it meant that our editing mostly consisted of choosing the best shot and dragging it into place. In both our prelim and final task we used iMovie, but the second time round we had more difficulties when editing. This was because our piece was simply too long; we had a time limit of approximately two minuets and our rough edit was 3:45. This was the very hardest part, because we had to cut our many of the scenes that we felt were very effective, but after a lot of cutting we managed to get it down to 2:14. However, I do feel that the finished product was a lot less fussy and over all was more effective with short cuts only showing what was really necessary.

In our preliminary task we had very little time to edit and as a result did not have time to find a good copyright free sound track. After our mistake in this area we

made the decision early on to create a list of possible sound tracks that we felt reflected the essence of the plot. This meant that once we have put all our shots in order, we had only to click and drag the piece of music out of the iTunes menu at the side in iMovie in onto our edited opening. One of the methods we used in order to shorten our opening was to time the cutting of shots to the music. For example when Hannah turns out the light as she walks out of her room and when the “stalker “ is flicking through his book. We also used free play music for the first time, it is a website that allows you to download music that has no copyright protection, so we are not breaking copy write laws by using it.

The original idea that we used for our final thriller opening came from Kristy, we then talked about it as a group, condensed it down into the best bits because we were aware that we had a time limit, and worked on it until we were al happy with it and it was ready to be turned into a shot list ad a storyboard. The changes that we made to the original include: cut it down to a fraction of its length, added in a number of shots that we felt had important messages that we wanted to convey. For example the shots near to the end in which Hannah and the stalker finish each other’s actions like walking down the stairs and opening and closing the door.

Our biggest strength was probably our ability to stick to all the plans we made when it came to the filming, because of the mistakes we made at the preliminary stage we were particularly wary of doing the same again. So, by sticking to our plans regularly we set ourselves up for fast successful editing later on. The main weakness would be the way we did not see the time problem when we had made six storyboards! Something I shall keep my eye on in the future. But on the whole, in my opinion the final media product that our team turned out definitely fulfills the thriller genre, and we took every mistake we made in the prelim task and improved upon it when doing our final.