Feedback on my film

From the feedback, I gathered that parts that could have been better was the sound as we could not hear the dialogue properly due to the high levels of wind. To avoid this, we should have either filmed inside, or we should have borrowed an extra microphone from the school. At the time, we did not know that we could do that but for future references, we will keep that in mind. We also gathered that we should have added more sound into the thriller to make it more effective.

Evaluation task 7 - Looking back at my preliminary task, what do I feel I have learnt in the progression from it to the product?

The difference between our preliminary task and our thriller is definitely noticeable. Looking at different Thrillers and representations of social groups in TV-dramas helped me to improve my skills in the key areas Planning and Research, Mise-en-Scene, Camera and Editing and to have a satisfactory result.

Planning and Research
One main difference between the planning for the preliminary and for the film was the time it took to plan. We had 60 minutes to plan and shoot our preliminary task, whereas we spent about 10 weeks planning and making our thriller. This vast distinction was from the lack of starting material we were provided with from our teachers, and thus gathered anything we could find. Similarly, a lot of the planning for the preliminary was already done for us as we were given a storyboard sheet which was made by our teacher. Overall, in the progress of our product, I learned how to plan the shots of our thriller, write them into a storyboard, write a shot by shot guide, and how to film the shots.

Furthermore, we had a very sufficient amount of time to complete our research into thrillers that were similar to ours, as well as past events and crimes that has happened and were similar to the ones hat took place in our thriller. This therefore allowed us to understand what sounds and shots we should have in our thriller as we wanted it to be made in the same style as other similar films, such as "The Sixth Sense".

Mise-en-Scene

As we invested more time into our product, this caused a huge distinction between the use and effect of Mise-En-Scene in the final product.

The biggest difference with our Mise-En-Scene was the setting. For our preliminary task, we were restricted to different areas of our school, and as there were many different groups recording their preliminary tasks at the same time as us, we had to make do with the area which was not already in use and this was a corridor. However, for our film, we researched many different locations that would be appropriate for our thriller and found that they were mainly either outside in dangerous areas at night, such as parks or even in the victims own houses. We also researched into crime investigations in real life and found real cases of people being murdered in forests, parks, on the street and in their own homes. With this, we learned how to use setting to affect the audience and its response on our thriller.

Additionally, the actors in my preliminary task and film were different. Firstly, there was a different group of us who shot and made the preliminary task to the thriller. My preliminary group included Gabriel, Aaron and Sam, whereas my thriller group included Gabriel, Cesare and Michel. Secondly, Gabriel and I acted in the preliminary task whilst Sam and Aaron filmed it, whereas the actors in the thriller included my father, sister and friend. For our thriller, we thought about who of the actors, that were available, would suit the role best and how much acting experience they already had. Therefore, unlike the preliminary task, we actually cast actors who also attracted our target audience. Through this process, I learned how stressful it is to cast and research into actors for a film and that things can change last minute as we had to change our location from a park to my garden. I also learned how to use costumes, professional lighting, and props to create effect and meaning. For our preliminary task, we used the natural lighting that was in the corridor, no props, and our own clothes that we were wearing that day. For our thriller, we used professional camera equipment and a range of different props, including a briefcase, crime scene tape, and costumes.

Camera

Over the year I have learned a lot about the use and effects of cameras and different shots. We used a Cannon XF305 camera for both the main task and preliminary. However the way in which we used the camera has changed vast amounts. This is proven in our preliminary task as we used basic shots, such as wide-Shots, mid-Shots and close-ups, which didn't really create the feeling of suspense and tension we wanted to create.

For our thriller, we used a much wider range of shots, including mid-close-ups, close-ups, extreme close-ups and many more variations of the basic shots. This lack of creativity in our prelim was not just because of our poor ability at this time, but because we were also limited in our shots through the storyboard that had been prepared for us in advance. For our thriller, we made our own storyboard and were able to add in extra shots on the shooting day if we had to change a few things. 

  Furthermore, as our preliminary task was simple and we had nothing to restrict us in terms of shots, it did not take us very long. However, with our thriller, a lot of the shots we used were improvised as we realised that we could see the reflection of the camera filming on the window and so were forced to change the angles in which we were filming from. This helped me to learn how to react with the camera very quickly and how to make decisions under the pressure. 

Editing

The main difference between how we edited our preliminary task and thriller was the amount of shots we had. For our preliminary task, we had around 10 shots with a total length of about 7 minutes, whereas for our thriller, we had over 50 shots, which produced around an hours worth of footage. As our preliminary task was only supposed to be around 10 seconds long and our thriller 2 minutes, this caused the difference between the two.
Another difference between the tasks was editing the shots together and making them flow and only over the past 3 months did we actually learn how to properly edit our thriller. For example in our thriller we used editing conventions of real media products such as match-on-action and cross-fade transitions. This made the thriller look much more professional and attractive in comparison to the preliminary task which looked basic and amateurish. 

Furthermore,  when organizing and discarding the shots, we found this was easy as all we had to do was remember the order of the shots that we decided on and think about what shots would make sense in what place. The only thing we found quite difficult was working out how to put transitions in and titles, and generally making it flow as this was the only thing we didn't do in our preliminary. We added extra sounds into our thriller, including sinister music to create a serious atmosphere and whispering noises to reinforce the tension. For our opening titles, we managed to add in effects of a spider crawling and a ghost walking through the title. Overall, we learned how to make our film extremely effective and managed to produce a "very good" thriller.

Sound

For our preliminary task, we did not include any non-diegetic sound as it was just dialogue. Therefore, we were not skilled at all at this part of the year in creating sounds. However, for our thriller, we included various different sounds such as mysterious music and eerie whispering sound effects. I feel that I have learned a lot in terms of sound as with the preliminary task, I did not even know how to download sound, let alone edit it. From the progression of editing the thriller, I learned how to crop sounds, make the volume fade in and out, overlap different sounds on top of each other and alter the volume of the sound. I also learned how to write the dialogue for the script and I learned that in order to avoid background wind, one should record dialogue with an extra microphone.

Evaluation task 6 - How have I used digital technologies in my production?

Our film itself has annotations of how we edited our film and what we achieved by doing so.

To find films that were similar to ours, we researched ghost thrillers and detective thrillers on Google and compared the audiences, mise-en-scene, shots, sounds, effects and actors with the help of imdb. We found that with most, the main characters were middle aged men. For example, the lead actor in "The Sixth Sense" is a middle aged man.

At first we found some articles on The Daily Mail and The Sun of girls being found murdered in parks and decided that a park was a good location as it was quite eerie and dangerous, especially in the evening. However, due to harsh weather conditions, we resorted to my house and garden. We watched films such as "The Sixth Sense" and TV shows such as "River" and decided the costumes for our characters would be smart.

Evaluation task 5 - How have I attracted/addressed my target audience?

Evaluation task 4 - Who would be the target audience for my media product

Our target audience would be someone like this as they are similar age to the characters in the film and are mature enough to handle a thriller. We reckon that our target audience would be male and female between the 18 and 50, probably in a relationship, married, in education or working. Our audience would like similar films, such as The Sixth Sense. They probably have disposable income, therefore they can buy the film or watch it in any format. As our film is likely to attract an older audience, they will be less likely to illegally stream it.

	Votes	Average
Males	437110	8.1
Females	113099	8.2
Aged under 18	2572	8.4
Males under 18	1908	8.4
Females under 18	640	8.5
Aged 18-29	237046	8.2
Males Aged 18-29	180665	8.2
Females Aged 18-29	54496	8.2
Aged 30-44	243282	8.1
Males Aged 30-44	197349	8.1
Females Aged 30-44	43175	8.2
Aged 45+	54662	8.2
Males Aged 45+	43102	8.2
Females Aged 45+	10751	8.4
IMDb staff	62	8.0
Top 1000 voters	916	8.0
US users	135019	8.2
Non-US users	322550	8.1
IMDb users	673765	8.1

This post of the users who watch The Sixth Sense clearly demonstrates that the most people who are interested in this type of film are between the ages 18-44. This supports our decisions in casting for our film as we have cast a 21 year old and 50 year old and therefore, these characters appeal to the audience of 18-44 year old's. In terms of our target audience, we have analysed the audience for films such as The Sixth Sense and have realised that our film shares many of these qualities, being a thriller.

I have decided that this will be the percentages of my target audiences ages. As the thriller is not suitable for those under 12 years of age, my target audience will involve no one of these ages. Around 5% of my target audience will be between the ages 12-15 as some may like the thriller, but we are targeting more of an older audience as our lead actors are older. The ages in which we would target would mainly be from 18-60, mainly being from the ages of 21-50 as these are the ages of the actors and we want our target audience to be able to relate to the actors. Moreover, as our Thriller sub-genre is a Supernatural-Thriller and involves Detectives, we want our audience to be quite mature to be able to deal with these themes.

People may see my film in cinemas such as The Reel in Borehamwood as it is a local cinema in North West London.

Evaluation task 3 - Why would a film company distribute my film?

Evaluation task 2 - How have I addressed social groups in my film?

Our film specialises in two sub headings:

Gender

My film is very stereotypical, having a male with the more dominant role over the woman. The main character, Detective Seth, has a more powerful position than the female and this conforms to the audience's expectations as they expect the man to be more dominant than the woman. This is provident as the male detective takes charge with opening the briefcase and has all the knowledge about the mark. In the film, we portray this through high angles looking down at the female character and we have more camera time on the male character. We also took shots of the male character standing over the blonde, dead victim, who is lying on the floor and is wearing white jeans to portray her vulnerability. This is a stereotypical representation of gender and thus conforms to the audience's expectation off a powerful male investigator and a weak, powerless female victim.This film ideology of genders is a very widespread and common one as it has been represented by media since the invention of film-thrillers, and the film industry as a whole.

This stereotypical representation is seen in other films, such as Sherlock Holmes where he has to help her by saving her. Likewise, in my film, my main male character has to help his female partner in figuring out that she is a ghost to help solve the crime. Silence of the Lambs is also similar to mine as the young female seeks the help of an older male serial killer.

 For our film we researched a number of thrillers that all had similar story lines as ours, such as Hitchcock's, The Lodger (1926) and Wes Craven's Scream (1996) which are about serial killers murdering innocent and attractive women, usually blonde. Similarly, our film features a blonde victim who has been killed and is played by Abigail Daniels. 
However, there have been some iconic, strong female character in the past years, for example, Hermione Granger and Katniss Everdeen. Despite this, they have all had moments where they get physically defeated by men and almost all of them have a male supporter, who helps them in dangerous situations an acts as a savour. This could imply that the women require the help of a man. 

A real-life crime where a man has purposefully murdered young, blonde girls would be the case of Levi Bellfield, who now goes by the name of Yufus Rahim. He murdered the blonde 13 year old Milly Dowler, 19 year old Marsha McDonnell and 22 year old Amelie Delagrange. He also tried to kill 18 year old Kate Sheedy, who survived.
Additionally, serial killer David Berkowitz targeted young women with long, brown hair, but forced them to dye their hair blonde. This therefore connotes how most vulnerable and powerless girls are seen to be blonde.

Age

My film also represents the stereotypes of different age groups. Detective Seth is a 50 year old detective and carries connotations of intelligence which are reflected in his experience and job title as head detective. He has a lot of knowledge about the mark that they find on the victims and takes charge a lot. However, his partner/ghost is much younger than him and is also a victim of the murders. She is in her late 20's and has much less experience with detective work. In many films, such as Silence of the Lambs, the older and wiser person helps and guides the younger person throughout their struggles in their life. 
Through our extended camera time on the older detective, we demonstrated that he was more important in solving the crime and had to help the younger detective. Additionally, through the eye-line match, we connoted how he knew more about how to solve crimes and knew where to look and what to look for, whereas she did not.


Disability

In our film the, the male detective is able to see ghosts and appears to be speaking to himself. However, although he is ABLE to see ghosts, the audience may see him as mentally DISABLED as he is speaking to himself. This is shown through a slow motion of him giving the gloves to the floor and long shots of him speaking to himself. Therefore, this character represents the disabled and subverts to stereotypical representations. On another note, we wanted to show disability in a positive light by portraying the main character as more of a hero, than someone whose disability is negative and restricts them. Therefore, we made him a counter-type to most representations of disability in the media. As our character is not restricted to a wheel chair or hallucinates negatively, his mental disability allows him to take charge, being able to see things that other people cannot.