Question 1. Within a thriller film, a major convention of the genre is that the film consists of a battle between a protagonist character and an antagonist. In my opening sequence I built up the theory of this by showing the unsettling atmosphere created between two women whose identity you are unaware of. However the antagonist’s identity is left mysterious as it fades out towards the end, which results in questioning to who the woman behind the mask was. I used low-key lighting throughout my work to create the atmosphere, which a thriller evokes; the whole film is in black and white to recreate the time, which the movie was set. In the midst of the film, there is quick/jump cuts to build up the tension and this also created unique imagery, which added to the surrealism of it. The music was a big part of my work as this was used to build up the tension and to allow the audience to grasp the storyline and idea of the film more as the movie itself didn’t give much of the storyline out, I preferred to portray all my ideas within symbolism in the film rather than deliberately showing the audience through speech. I wanted to focus on the symbolism of women in 1945, in which the film was set; this is because of the growth in power in which they were given in the war. Therefore the protagonist of my film is a brave female, which may restore equilibrium. This goes against a convention of thriller horror movies as they men are usually portrayed in more light as they are seen as the stronger, more dominant sex. A major technique I used when directing was that I used a lot of close ups and extreme close ups to the woman’s face and body features, this was to create imagery within my film and to show the mise en scene which I created through the use of makeup to create my character. I wanted to show lack of emotion to symbolise the different effects of what the war had on people and the destruction that it caused. I used close ups of a skull to represent the death and loss which the people of Hiroshima (and the rest of world) had to go through, the locations in which I shot my film were very ominous settings and they looked quite bizarre. I took shots near a nuclear power plant to symbolise the nuclear atomic bombs, which were created and were used in rivalry in the war. In my research, I analysed opening sequences, The Shining directed by Stanley Kubrick and Se7en, directed by David Fincher. I looked at existing works created by directors such as David Lynch and Salvador Dali for the visual side of my work and the unique cinematic styles which they both used as they were into the art side of directing. I was inspired by the violent, disgusting elements of David Lynch’s work by using the images of the dead animal and how I dressed Rema in the film. I looked at experimental videos on youtube to see what ordinary people had created using imagery and which effects they added to it. A major movie I was inspired by was Eraserhead and alphabet directed by David Lynch. The people Lynch used in his films influenced the characters I created. This is because you always question them with their odd movements and lack of voice. I used primary research to investigate my audience by doing this I was able to find out specific elements of a thriller film people were interested in followed by their age and other details about them. This will help me to promote my film as I have an idea on were to air my film and where. Before I created the storyline I looked at information on Hiroshima so that I had an idea where I wanted to set my film and what I could do to the actress’ in my film. I got a grasp of the convention I wanted to create and based my character around these ideas. You can see my inspiration in my final film as I dressed

Sophie in a dress from the 40’s and a gas mask, which shows that something is wrong, perhaps to do with a bomb. When I was dressing Rema I bought the clothes from a charity shops and burnt them and put holes in them to show the heat of the bomb as it the atomic bomb penetrate heat out of it and the surroundings turned to ash in a close radius. The dirt in the clothes shows she has been struggling and may not have a home so she has lost all she once had. I looked at real photos taken from Hiroshima, from the images you can see that the majority of buildings had burnt down so it was mostly baron lands influenced the locations, this is why I choose Steetley to film the scene with the gas mask and Rema. As the movies is also in black and white, the sea becomes a slight allusion and it allows the audience to question the settings as it looks very un usual. The opening sequence slightly foreshadows what the narrative is about, I used the radio broadcast at the beginning to identify the situation so that the audience knew it was based on the atomic bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, which initially ended World War II. The idea of the girl stood in various places was a surreal idea I had to show the idea of loss, death and emotion based on the war, this links to a sub genre of psychological thriller as it allows the audience to try and figure out the storyline themselves which may contain plot twists. Question 2. ‘Little Boy’ represents a minor target audience as surreal; art films aren’t the most popular of films, which is shown in my secondary research. I used young adults in my film to give the idea of the loss of family especially with the older people, so the girl’s parents would have died in the war. I specifically used girls to portray the idea of the power in woman at the time as the war gave woman the chance to gain more power and control. I used the older females voice towards the end to represent the difference in time, which the movie narrator is set. This is because the film is a woman looking back to the war, now she’s older, the voice is the woman’s in the gas mask but I didn’t make this clear in the opening sequence so that it created question and so that the audience aren’t aware of this until the watch the movie in full. I used a girl from a different ethnic background to show the difference between the two nations which were at war with each other, Rema portrays the victims of Hiroshima were as Sophie represents England and America, the power in the gas mask and cleanliness of Sophie shows the differences in the two as it symbolises the power which Sophie has in comparison to Rema, this shows the idea of the corresponding sides in the war. This may attract audiences from these countries as it seems more realistic and they may be able to empathize more with the character. I looked at pictures of the people who were affected by the atomic bomb and based my characters on these, so I bought white contact lenses as peoples eyes were affected in the heat and radioactive substances given off by the explosion. I made the clothes so that they fit each character and were able to tell a background story to both characters, which shows the differences of the two people. As it’s set in the 1940’s, this will attract the older audience as they may have lived through the war, woman may wish to watch this film as they like the idea of power of woman and the growth of equality at this time. Another major aspect of the film was that I choose to made it black and white, this was so that it fitted the time that it was

supposed to be filmed as they used black and white cameras at the time, with the radio broadcast and speech, I used vintage radio (1945) which was at the time which it was set which is appropriate for the narrative. The main message of my film was that , Rema (a young girl effected by the nuclear warfare) is alive but has major defects to her health and appearance after these events. The whole plot is to show us how the environment and how people were affected by Hiroshima, Chernobyl and Nagasaki as a whole and finally how war destroys us. It’s set in various locations so that the surroundings all contrast with each other and to show all the different imagery of the aftermath of these disasters. Rema is in the baron land to show the loss of the disaster and how she was physically affected. You get ideas of her having nausea, vomiting, loss of weight, appetite, and bleeding and discoloured spots on skin from the clothes and acting of the film. The lack of facial expressions show us how different people were effected as when many people become depressed they show a lack of motivation and emotion so she will have a blank face to show loss, death and illness which surrounded them. Not only were they affected in the short term but also in the long term, which led the people to be tested on for years after. This full plot is to show the horror of the real world and to show people what they didn’t get to see from these disasters, which took place. The idea of the woman in the gas mask was to show that she will be telling the plot of the storyline and may or may not be the ‘villain’. VideoR Question 6. Whilst doing this task, I developed skills and information on the technology used in the media industry. I used programs on the computer to edit and plan my work and most importantly used final cut pro, audacity and garage band for the production of my film. When recording my work, I used the (camera) including in a tripod which was the first time I had set one up before and a (microphone) to record the multiple audio clips over the film. I was able to come to terms on how to set them up and how to record and use playback on the camera. When transferring my work onto the computer, I used garage band to create background music. I used the given samples which it offered (under loops) as I knew what sort of music I wanted so I went for dissonant and dark sound so that I created a dark undertone which makes it unsettling. I copied and pasted (looped) a piece of audio throughout the whole piece and cropped the dead air from the recordings. When editing the voices, I cropped the dead air and the noise picked up from the surroundings, I changed the volume of the piece and tried different audio edits like telephone audio which muffled the piece and changed the pan of the audio so that it resembled real media types. In audacity I edited the violin by adding echo, reverb, reverse and delay. I played in a minor key and different techniques when composing the piece like slurs etc. In final cut pro I used various editing techniques. Firstly I created a timeline of the videos I captured which followed my storyboard, I then cropped the videos down so that I could get rid of unwanted or messy clips. When I imported the clips, I turned the audio down straight away and edited them all black and white that was found under effects. I also layered different video clips by putting them on top of each other and changing the opacity/ transparency of them, this is how

I created the eye and woodland scene. I faded the final scenes out by setting up a timeline and changing the opacity of them clips over a set period of time. I did the same for the music underneath the video, put this time setting a timeline for the volume. To create my logo I used Photoshop, I found an image related to my companies name and used the zoom, pen and titles even though I didn’t use many techniques, I now know my way around Photoshop from my prelim task as well. When developing my research, I used websites such as padlet, slideshare, blogger, sound cloud and pintrest to collect all my ideas, I was able to create pages and add video to my blog which is shared with the rest of the world. This was my first time I created and used a blog and now I feel comfortable and confident with this medium. Question 7. In my prelim task, I wasn’t confident with final cut pro and the filming techniques but as a member of my group has experience, I was able to grasp the simple edit techniques and how to import videos to it, this helped me when I came to my final film as I was able to independently edit my film straight away. This helped the timing I had to create my piece, as I was already aware on what I needed to do. The storyline wasn’t very apparent in my prelim task as we didn’t have a lot of time to film t as my group members were ill so I had to change groups. When doing my final piece I made sure I recorded a lot of content in the half term so that I didn’t run out of time I also had to make sure I filmed the majority of the film in one day as it would have been hard to re do the makeup and have access to the costumes another time. I was able to learn more about final cut pro as I proceeded to edit my opening sequence, I came across transpositions and adding effects, titles and how to crop the screen to delete unnecessary space- I did this with a scene from Steetley as it didn’t look symmetrical with the pier in the middle so I cropped around the dead space from behind both people. From this coursework I have improved my creative skills by creating and planning an opening sequence. I am now aware of all the variety of camera angles used in film and this helped me create a detailed storyboard by adding the angles I was going to use. From drafting my ideas this way, I was able to create an original story line and an idea of the imagery I was going to use. From my research and looking at real videos, I was inspired and influenced to create my own opening sequence with similar techniques and effects that they used which helped me with the overall feel on my work and this allowed me to bring art into it. Question 3/4/5. Question 3. For my film I’d pick an independent company to distribute my film as of the content of the film. As it’s an experimental, arty film, major companies wouldn’t want to take this on as of the money it would receive as it has such a small target audience. An independent institutor would most likely distribute my media product as of the surreal aspect of the film. For the opening I choose Eagle-Lion Films as it

intended to release British productions in the United States. The ‘Little Boy’ bomb was created and dropped by the United States so a lot of the target audience may be based in America, as they were involved with this event. It was a very small film lot and produced low budget films. It helped re-establishing United Artists as an industry powerhouse in the 1900’s. As of the small demand for surrealism, my target audience would have a small audience. My film is aimed at an older, mature audience as they are more likely to respect art and some elderly people may even sympathize with the film if they were alive during wars, especially World War II. Since art is involved with the film, people who live in a city may prefer to watch it rather than people living in the suburbs or country as a sense of escapism as it’ll be released in limited cinemas, smaller towns and villages will least likely have the type of cinema to offer. Students who study art, history or media may also view the film for their own work, so in a sense, there is a wide age range but only minor groups within the ages who would be interested in ‘Little Boy’. As there are only two actresses in the film, it’s mainly aimed at younger females as of the idea of power of women which is shown from symbolism however as war was dominated by men, this may attract the male figures to increase. Older people are most likely to watch this as of the time period in which it is set rather than the characters used in it, however as of the mise en scene, this will be apparent to the older audience of the period of time which they may have been alive in and about their age at the time.