Our Initial Idea and Pitch.

In this post i will explain the idea of our film in the hope that after it has been presented we will recieve constructive feedback.

Genre: Psychological Thriller
Possible Sub-Genres: Crime and Mystery.

We are going to produce the opening two minutes of our intended Feature Length Thriller. In these opening 2 minutes we will include the opening credits, a range of camera angles and shots, different filming techniques and finally some very intresting editing ideas.

The Conventions we hope to incorperate into our film are as followed:

• A mystery playing throughout the storyline.
• Some kind of Car Chase.
• A knife as a weapon.
• The use of a vehicle and loudnoises as a person disappears from shot.
• A bathroom for a piece of set.
• Fast paced camera work and editing.
• Tension building Non-Diagetic Sound/Music.
• Bruising and Wounds being shown on a persons body to show fighting.
• Finally the possible use of a graphic match.

Now that our ideas have been bounced off one another we have collected those we desire and created the foundations for our Thriller Film Opening. Below is an embedded copy of our pitch to the rest of the AS Media Group.



While listening to this if anyone should think of any constructive criticism to give us please feel free to tell me.
As well as this, should you hear anything you like and wish to contribute to then again tell me or someone in "CAM RAW" Productions as comments are incredibly useful.

Thank you for listening to our pitch.

Target Audiences.

As i touched earlier on in my blog Target Audiences range depending on what type of film you are making. In this post i will look at the BBFC's Age Rating Systems and what they actually mean. From this i hope to later apply my new found knowledge on the subject to decide an Age Rating for our Thriller.

My notes have been made from looking at the Official BBFC Website: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

U: This rating means the film being rated is suitable for anyone to view or purchase.

PG, Parental Guidance: This is very similar to that of U but instead means that parents should take note of what content may be shown in the film. though it may be suitable for younger ages, some parents may not want their children exposed to certain topics brought up the film.

12, 12A: These two ratings are like U and PG, they are very similar but do have slight differences. 12 refers to the overall age rating of the film in the sense that anyone 12 or above can purchase and/or watch this film. 12A comes into the cinema viewing process. If a film is rated 12A, it means that those under the age of 12 are able to see the film if they so wish but they must also be accompanied by an adult.

15: No one under the age of 15 may view or purchase this film.

18: Exactly like the rating 15 but instead the viewers must be 18 years of age.

R18: Films with this rating are only viewable in specially licensed cinemas by adults over the age of 18 and can only be sold in licensed sex shops.

Note: I have only noted this final rating for knowledgable reasons so i fully understand all of the BBFC's Age Ratings.

What conclusions can I draw from this research? What have I learnt?

After reading through each of the BBFC's Ratings i have come to conclude that our Thriller Film would most likely come under the rating 15 or 18. On top of this i have also learned that depending on the slightest thing shown in a film can instantly alter the rating given to it.

What I have learnt that will make me a better film-maker?

Now i know all of the BBFC's Rating i can more easily rate and control the content in any future films i may produce.

How will what I've learnt make my final film better?

In the case of out current work, with this rating we can now limit what we put into the piece. As well as this we also have a greater idea of who are target audience is and how we can make our work appealing to them.

How do I follow up this research? What is my next step?

Now that we have discussed the age range for our audience we can gather up all of our notes and ideas and prepare the first pitch to the rest of the group and gather feedback on what they think so far.

Initial Idea.

In this post i will be presenting an electronic version, the original being on an A3 sheet of paper, of our plans for our Thriller Film Opening. I've done this in the form of a Prezi for two reasons, One it is a electronic presentation tool and Two, It is also something new to learn how to use so i felt it useful to experience Prezi and learn how to use it efficently.

Summary of Ideas on Prezi

Research Pt 3. Other Genres and Conventions associated with them.

Star Wars III Opening



Star Wars is a well known Sci-Fi Movie (Science Fiction). In this opening taken from Episode 3 i can notice many conventions which show it as a Sci-Fi Movie.

• The use of a light blue font colour on the opening text gives an alien feel to the film.
• The font design of the Star Wars label itself looks like its "futuristic".
• The background being black gives the impression of outer space in all its blackness.

Superbad Opening Sequence.



Superbad is a Comedy Movie. Looking from the opening titles i can see the conventions which make it out to look comedic.

• The one thing that i notice first is the use of an old film reel effect. This type of effect would not be used in a serious film so in essense this has to have some comedic activity inside it.
• The use of upbeat average paced music adds to this "not so serious" effect.
• Next we see a sillouette in dark blue with a yellow background, this is intresting as usual sillouettes are black and white to give the impression of shadows.
• Aside from the colour's of the sillouette it is what the sillouette is doing which tells the viewer it is a comedy, and that is dancing. If it were a thriller or an action movie it is unlikely that it would begin with bright coloured sillouettes dancing to the beat of the music.
• Looking closer at the sillouettes we can tell that they are not being produced by grown men but are instead being made by what appears to be guys that are mid-late teenager's or at a push, in their early 20's.
• The way these guys interact with each others sillouettes and dance to the music along side different coloured shapes pulsing out from the center tells me it may have some kind of party theme to it.

Toy Story Intro.



Toy Story is a Disney Animated Feature aimed specifically at younger children, there are a number of conventions present in this clip which show it is a Childrens film.

• The first point is seeing Woody on the floor. Woody is a Cowboy Toy which shows its based around a child and his toy.
• The use of two other toy parts falling to the ground like a really young child has been playing with a toy and pulled some of its body parts off shows the innocence children have when playing with toys.
• The use of a basic, simple white font appears the audience as very soft and child like, not like that of other harsher titles such as on Inception.
• Wide and bright colour palet used in the clip (And for the Titles) to attract younger children to it.
• The cloud wallpaper could represent how children always have their heads in the clouds, dreaming. Or on the other hand it could be to show softness.
• Next we see a slightly high angled shot of Woody and Andy playing, this puts the audience in the perspective of the toy, looking up at their owner.
• The crayon drawings on the cardboard boxes have obviously been drawn by the child so this just shows the creativity behind a childs mind.
• Most of the shots are very long letting the audience take in this massive array of colour in the room.
• The music (You've got a friend in me, Randy Newman) is very happy and "light-hearted" again to attract young minds. As well as this it also sets the storyline in the sense that Andy and his Toy feel as if they will always be together.
• We see at another point in the clip a shot from Woody's point of view as he spins around on the chair to put the audience into the right perspective for the story. This already hints at whats to come as the rest of the story does in fact revolve around the toys.
• Aside from the shots taken from a toys perspective there are also many taken from a childs height, again putting the audience into this mind set of being a child or a toy.

What conclusions can I draw from this research? What have I learnt?
I've learned about other Genres and how they have very different conventions in comparison to Thrillers.
The use of colours in the opening sequence set the scene for many films such as, Superbad and Toy Story.
Camera Angles put the Audience in the perspective of the characters.

What I have learnt that will make me a better film-maker?
Make sure to put extra effort in the construction of opening sequences as it sets the audience up for what is to come, if the opening is badly made, the audience is likely to have a poor view of the film.
When producing a film of a specific genre try to keep everything according to that genre so not to run the risk of straying into too many different genres.

How will what I've learnt make my final film better?
As i said i my previous paragraph, we must pay due care and attention when filming and editing our opening sequence so that it makes the cut.
On top of this we also need to take care in how we design and present our title so that it fits the concept.

How do I follow up this research? What is my next step?
Now that i have looked at Genres, Sub-Genres and Conventions in a range of different films i will turn my attention back to our final film idea and compile a brain storm of what we are going to produce.

Research Pt 2. Looking deeper at the Conventions of Thrillers.

In this Post i will be breaking down extracts from well known Thrillers to find points of inspiration for our final piece.

Trailer for Inception.



Inception Conventions -

• The heavy, low bass like track in the back ground which speeds up over the course of the clip.
• The timing of each beat at the beginning with a clip and the production company names.
• The tone in which the main character speaks over the top of the clip is slow and fits with the music.
• It challenges the Thriller convention of having an evil bad guy and good guy, instead we are unsure which is which.
• Like with The Godfather, the main character is almost always wearing a kind of suit or formal clothes.
• The lighting on the clips and on the titles are very dark giving the feel of somthing wrong.

A Walkthrough of Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock.



Now the 1960 Trailer for Psycho.



Psycho Conventions -

• Set in a remote motel and "creepy" house.
• Loud horns are heard after Hitchcock says "Woman was first seen", Gives us the impression something bad is going to happen to her.
• The use of high pitched, screeching music in the background on the second clip gives extra tension to the film.
• It may be the effect of the black and white film but there is very dim lighting in the film showing darkness.
• As the clip progresses we hear faster paced music with extra beats.
• The hero is wearing a formal suit.
• Along side the music the length of the clips gets shorter and they move by quicker.
• A broken font title gives another "creepy" feel to the film.

A Short Clip from Vertigo.



Vertigo Conventions -

• Soft, High pitched music again adding to the tension and suspense of the scene.
• Dim lighting although this may be because of the black and white filming of the time.
• The clip is set in an urban landscape but in a dark secluded alley.
• Hero again in a formal suit.
• The hero appears to be an investigator which seems to also be a convention in Hitchcock's Pyscho.
• Shots are very slow and seem to give time to allow the viewer to take in all the movie and assess what the character is doing, possibly also giving the viewer the chance to mentally pose questions as to what he is doing.

What conclusions can I draw from this research? What have I learnt?
Although Genres can be similar between films, the conventions they use can alter greatly and still conform to their genre.
Non Diagetic Music/Sound is a great asset in the Thriller Genre as it can effect the tension and suspence given from a clip, shot or scene.

What I have learnt that will make me a better film-maker?
When using Music, Non Diagetic or Diagetic, make sure it fits the tone/feel of the film.
I do not need to conform to all Thriller Conventions in order to make my film a Thriller.

How will what I've learnt make my final film better?
Linking to my previous point, we will carefully look into what sound effects and music we use in our final piece.
We also now have others works to give us inspiration and ideas to put into our film.

How do I follow up this research? What is my next step?
My next step is to look at a few clips from other genres and see how conventions are shown.

Research Pt 1. Genres, Sub-Genres, Thrillers and their Conventions.

In this post i will be looking at Genres, specifically our chosen genre, Thriller. We have chosen to produce a Thriller film for a number of reasons. We wanted to produce a film of a more serious nature, one in which our audience would not laugh and instead be clinging to the edge of their seats for whats to come next.

By definition a Genre is a group or class of artistic field which have a particular conformity and/or technique.
As well as this there are also Sub-Genres which are lesser forms of a genre. These Sub-Genres could fall under two seperate Genres (A Hybrid) and so form their own group, techniques and conformities.
Thrillers are a genre of Film, Televison or Literature which "thrill" their actual audiences through the elaborate use of tension, suspence and excitement.

There are many Genres and Sub-Genres of Thrillers.
These include:

• Mystery Thriller
• Crime Thriller
• Psychological Thriller
• Political Thriller
• Paranoid Thriller

Other Sub-Genres for example:

• Conspiracy Thriller
• Disaster Thriller
• Erotic Thriller
• Legal Thriller
• Medical Thriller
• Religious Thriller
• Supernatural Thriller
• Techno Thriller

Putting Genre and Sub-Genre aside, there are many conventions which are found in practically every Thriller you will come across.

The story line to a Thriller often contains two seperate views, One of the heroic lead and one of the Evil Villain. These view points are generally very similar or complete opposite to one another. The Villains view is usually a result of a twisted and dark background resulting in him having a hatred for the hero or an aspect of the hero's life. In contrast to this the view on the hero is that of a sympathetic one, thus making the audience side with him.
When choosing and designing characters in thrillers one must take great thought into how they appear to the audience. Depending on the type of thriller you may be producing you will most likely have different looking heroes and villains or in fact very similar ones. For example in The Godfather, because it is based around the story of a Mafia rivalry, both "good" characters and "bad" characters are wearing neat looking suits. On the other hand if we look at Black Swan, the psychological thriller, we see each character wears a different costume. Nina being the white swan it could symbolise good in her and with Lily being the black swan it could show darkness, but instead there is a twist in the story in which it is the bright Nina finding darkness in herself.
Turning to setting's of thrillers i have found that many settings are usually in the extreme. For example in a crime thriller then the area may be New York as its large, tightly packed urban landscape would suit that of a crime thriller. In contrast to this a thriller involving strange disappearances or supernatural goings on would most like be set in "the middle of nowhere" or more sub-urban areas.
This links me nicely to the convention of sound in thrillers. If the story is based out in the country then the music is most likely to be slow paced and soft but also be very eerie and thought provoking at times giving the effect something is going to happen but in the silence we dont know when. On the other hand as with an urban area the music would be again a complete opposite. It would be very fast paced and heavy toned to give the effect of the bustling city flying past you. This also has an effect of tension and suspense when watching as it makes things almost too fast for the audience to see and so when something happens it "thrills" them because they were caught off-guard watching what else was happening.

Before i conclude this post i would like to look at the audience. For the Genre of Thriller i believe that the audience can be very wide to a certain extent. I feel that Thrillers would not be aimed at very young or very old people and instead are more aimed at the ages inbetween. Film makers do not intend to show young children or the older generation a film such as Inception or The Matrix. It is common sense, The younger generation would struggle to grasp the events of a Thriller and probably cry during the process while the older generation would most likely find it boring and not quite to their tastes. From this i believe it can be counted on that our target audience for our final piece will be those between the ages of 16 and 30.

There have been many famous thrillers produced over the years from a number of different directors, After searching IMDb i have found many examples of well known Thrillers from different times.
The Top Rated List of Thrillers from IMDb includes famous Titles such as:

• The Godfather (Parts 1 and 2)
• Inception
• Psycho
• The Silence of the Lambs
• Vertigo

What conclusions can I draw from this research? What have I learnt?
I have an accurate definition of, Genres, Sub-Genres and Thrillers.
I now understand that many films cannot be defined under one single genre as most are hybrids of a number of different genres in one.
The names of Thriller Genres and Sub-Genres.
 And lastly,The conventions of said genres and how they vary between them.

What I have learnt that will make me a better film-maker?
When deciding on what genre of film i will produce i need to take into account what Genres and Sub-Genres i utilise as later on these will effect who my target audience will be and more to the point, the amount of those people who will actually go and watch my film.

How will what I've learnt make my final film better?
Now i have looked into the conventions of Thrillers, as a group, we can decide on which of those conventions we are going to use, develop and challenge in our final piece.

To explore the conventions of Thrillers i chose three of the above and watched an extract of them in order to spot any conventions there may be. My choices were, Inception, Psycho and Vertigo.

Welcome

Hi there and Welcome to my AS Media Blog. I am presenting my work in the form of a blog because it is different to that of past years and as technology advances more and more of the population are becoming accustom to the use of it. I am hoping that as i progress through my research i will learn, what is needed to produce a film, how films are produced, why create a film of a specific genre, what are the conventions of each genre and finally how these will effect the film we later produce.

On this blog i will post any of my Research, Extracts of Films for Examples and also any Short Films we make over the course of the year.
Our group is TIAB Productions (Post Doctor X's Production we changed our name to "CAM RAW" Productions) and we are: Me, Josh Clarke, Matt Wallis and Holly Sandford.

Below is an embeded copy of our first production as a group. Doctor X.

This Short was the result of our Preliminary Task which consisted of the following elements:

• Opening Titles and Credits.
• Match-on-Action.
• Shot Reverse Shot.
• 2+ lines of Dialogue.

From this Preliminary Task i have learned a number of things.
One example being the importance of detail when it comes to Continuity, I was first to notice that in one of the shots before Matty turns on the chair, we see a green wig on the desk top, this same green wig is the one which Matty holds in a later shot.
Another few factors we stumbled across in this task will help us in due time when it comes to filming again, for example, how long shooting actually takes before editing, the complications involved in shooting in certain environments and also how sound and lighting greatly effect the finished piece.
This said, i have to say i am very pleased with how the final piece turned out, i feel it has helped us find where we are strong, and where we need to improve as a production team.
Some of the better points to our film include: The intresting use of black and white in a fight scene, multiple match-on-action shots and using suitable music to fit the scene.