Evaluation

Audience questionnaires
These are the questions we asked 50 of our target audience of young/adults after showing them our 2 minute opening of a thriller film. This is important to gather information about what our target audience wants/likes, and what they don't want/ like in a thriller.
1. What age range best fits you?
2. What sex are you?
3. Do you think this is believable as the opening of a thriller? Explain.
4. Would you be interested in watching the rest of the thriller?
5. What sort of reaction did you have after watching my opening sequence?
6. Was the setting appropriate for the thriller? Give 2 reasons why.
7. Were the characters appropriate for the thriller? Give 2 reasons why.
8. Was the music suitable? Explain.
9. How could it be improved/ What did you like about it?
10. Were the transitions effective? Explain.
The results from our audience questionnaires showed that the average age of our target audience is 30+, and 70% questioned were female. All questioned believed that it was a believable opening for a thriller; the dominant ideology being that the characters and setting were realistic; this is positive as it shows we had a very good verisimilitude. Again, everyone said they would be interested in watching the rest of the thriller, as they were interested in finding more out about the character of the kidnapper and get to the bottom of her flashbacks. The most common reactions we had from people after watching our opening sequence was feeling confused about the storyline but curious to watch more, and a certain uneasiness but empathetic approach towards the protaginist, the kidnapper. The audience found the setting appropriate for the thriller as it is in an everyday setting where you wouldn't expect bad things to happen. They also felt the setting signified the mood; graveyard was a sad, reflective scene for example. Reasons given for the characters being appropriate for the thriller was that each character looked right for their role and was of appropriate age. They also found it more interesting that the protaginist/ powerful character was female not male and that the child was male not female; the audience seemed to like this role reversal. The music was found to be suitable as it had an eerie, lullaby type sound to it that suited the thriller genre and the opening sequence. The audience liked the flashbacks, and the development of the character of the kidnapper, but felt perhaps more characterisation could be developed for the child so more empathy could be felt. The audience believed the transitions were effective, especially the transitions with the eye, as this was captivating and helped them remember it was a flashback.

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

a) Our thriller incorporates generic conventions such as;

• Cutting between scenes quickly; the flashbacks featuring the eye demonstrate this.
• Intricate plot to create fear causing tension; we have plenty of transitions, camera angles, settings and interesting characters with complicated backgrounds.
• Shaky camera movements making the viewer feel uneasy; when the kidnapper is first introduced, the camera shakes a little to imply how unstable her life feels.
• A narrative that builds tension; we decrease the amount of time in between each flashback to fasten the pace and tension.
• Unsettling music to unnerve the viewer; throughout the first 2 minutes we chose an eerie lullaby type music in the background.
• Ordinary location, exrtaordinary events; the child is kidnapped at a busy park.
• Centered on a crime; it is about a kidnapping
• Characters are fallible; the child is too young to protect himself, the kidnapper is mentally disabled so is unable to think clearly and make well thought out decisions, the parents make the mistake of turning their backs on their child for a second.
• Audience are put in position of voyeurs; they become the eyes of the child in various scenes such as when he is counting at the park and the audience can see through his hands, or when he is tucked into bed by the kidnapper and the audience see this through his point of view.
• Often includes mistaken identity; the audience may mistake the child in the flashbacks for the child in the park.
• Theme of mirroring; the story the kidnapper reads the child in one of the flashbacks mirrors the situation she finds herself in at the park.
• Characters put in situations that threaten danger; when the child is left alone in the park with the kidnapper watching.

b) How does your thriller develop or change these conventions?

• The main character in power is female; the kidnapper, and the victim is male; the child. Usually thrillers use females as the vunerable characters and males as the dominating ones.
• We didn't so much centre on the crime of the kidnapping, but rather the phsycological reasons that lead to her doing this through the flashbacks.
• We didn't use shadows and mirrors to create suspense and fear as our danger was out in the open to show how vunerable the child was and how unexpected it was.
• We didn't use any mazes or labyrinths (real or physical) as we felt this wasn't necessary or relevant to our story.

c) Does the use of conventions indicate which sub-genre or hybrid genre your thriller is?

• Yes, our slow paced, character developing with plot twists suggests our thriller is under the drama sub genre.
• The kidnappers emotional and mental conflict through her flashbacks suggests our thriller is also under the phsycological thriller sub genre.

d) Does your use of conventions indicate which other thrillers have influenced your work? If so, be specific with examples.

• Yes, we quickly cut between scenes, used an out of focus effect on the kidnapper, unsettling music like the film 'Seven'.
• We used flashbacks, low angle shots, not reveal the purpose and have eerie sentences like in the film 'The Usual Suspects'
• We used the colour black to signify a character in power like in the film 'Hostage'.
• We made the child look vunerable, high angle shots, white font, and suggestive foreshadowing like in 'Sleeping With the Enemy'.
• We didn't show the main characters face and fastened the pace like in 'Strangers on a Train'.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• What are the social groups represented in your thriller? Females in power but mental states of vunerability are represented in our thriller, as are parents in positions of distress. Young children in danger are represented also. I would say the characters are working class white people, but the storyline could apply to any class or race and still have the same impact, this was just the resources we were available to.


• Gender is not shown in a stereotypical way in our thriller as the only man in our thriller is the father of the child, a minor instead of major role that involves being loving and caring instead of the scary, dominant character. The woman in our thriller isn't shown to be passive; she is the one in power, although I think shots such as the first shot of her where she sits in an armchair looking sad demonstrate how she is usually passive. Equally, although the person in danger is a child, we chose to challenge the convention of using a little girl and instead used a little boy.


• This links to our target audience of adults and parents as they will be able to relate to all the characters; they may have dealt with loss through death like the kidnapper, or experienced mental health problems themselves. Parents will be able to empathise with the parents in the thriller as they will be able to imagine the immense pain of losing a child.


• Our audience questionnaires show most of our target audience are females over 30, like the mother and the kidnapper in the thrilller, which is good as they will be able to relate to the character better and understand what they're going through.
  

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

• I think our thriller could be produced by a major Hollywood studio or a smaller independent production company, it really depends on how the rest on the film is made. I think from the first 2 minutes and the target audience it could easily be made in Hollywood as their is a large target audience; mainly females visit the cinema. However, using an independant production company may give the thriller something different and quirky which could equally appeal to the target audience. Our thriller is similar to the existing film 'Flight Plan' which was made by a major production company and was extremely successful, so perhaps this is the way to go.


• Would it be a TV movie? I think our thriller could easily be a TV movie as our camera equipment isn't as proffessional as those that they use in films, and our target audience of 30+ females are likely to be at home during the daytime so will be available to watch the movie, although I'm not sure how we will profit from airing the thriller this way.


• I don't think our thriller would be an arthouse film as these are aimed at a niche audience rather than a mass audience such as our target audience. If our thriller were aimed at teens for example, I think arthouse would be a good option.


• Similarly, I don't think an internet only release would be a good idea as 30+ yr olds are usually busy with work and children to fully spread the film around, and may not be interested to watch it through such devices. Likewise with above, I think this is more a thing to do with a target audience of teenagers.
• Our thriller would it be released for entertainment, enjoyment, to thrill, and to perhaps make people empathise more with death and mental illness and be more cautious of the details behind child abduction. I think it would sell quite well because there have been a few cases of child abduction in the media recently such as Madeline McCann, so people will be interested. It doesn't offer opportunities for franchises or merchandising as much as some films; e.g. childrens/teen films, but we could use cross promotion by using a certain artist's songs throughout the thriller so that whoever listens to the artist will think of our thriller, and the artist will benfit also from feauturing in the thriller. By doing this we could bring out a soundtrack CD that the audience may then want to buy, and then obviously bring out a DVD.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

• 30+ females are our target audience, which links to the narrative and style of my film as women are more interested in issues within the mind such as the kidnappers flashbacks, and parents may be interested in films about child abduction as they'll find it easy to empathise, and the audience questionnaires confirmed this.


• We chose this particular target audience because when we thought of the idea for our thriller, we were attracted to the idea of making a thriller for them as we couldn't think of many thriller films that were aged at this target audience and felt they may be missing out and that we had found a gap in the market.
• Our thriller appeals to them by using devices which polled 30+ females were found to enjoy; mental issues, children, and loss. They would go and see it because the advertisements for it would be really powerful and captivating and they would feel the urge to go and see it.


• Flight Plan and Sleeping with the Enemy are 2 films that are similar to our film as they deal with mental problems, vunerability and abduction. These films are targeted at the same audience as ours and inspired us with our thriller.

5. How did you attract/ address your target audience?

• We used our parents and actors in our thriller to watch our thriller and show their freinds/ relatives etc. so soon were able to establish that we had chosen the right group. After doing this we could give them the audience questionnaires.


• I don't think there are any particular points in our film that would particularly terrify a certain age gender, little children may be scared in the graveyard scenes, but equally teenagers may like the graveyard scenes. I think all age groups would like the flashbacks with the eye because it looks good and eye catching. Older people will be more interested in whats going on during the flashbacks.


• Our use of camera work was varied and interesting. For example, we had:
• Point of view shots; for the child,
• We used match on action; when the family walks past the camera and out the door, then the kidnapper does the same thing
• Tracking; when the kidnapper comes out her house and walks through her garden
• Zooming; we zoomed out of the childs picture in the first shot, and zoom was also used in the park when the family are playing and then the camera zooms out to reveal the kidnapper watching.
• Hand held shots; when the kidnapper is first introduced, to give a gritty realism which involves the viewer very closely with the scene.
• Our framing choices and techniques were also varied;
• Extreme Close Up; of the eye for the flashbacks.
• Very Long Shot to Medium Shot; when the kidnapper walks down the alley.
• Over the shoulder shot; over both parents shoulders when the child is discovered to be missing in the park.
• Low angle shot; when the kidnapper is tucking her child into bed in one of the flashbacks.
• Medium close up; when the child is counting.
• Walking room; when the kidnapper walks off camera in her house.
• Looking room; when the kidnapper looks over to the bare xmas tree .

• The audience is asked to put themselves in the position of the child sometimes, which gives them a better feeling of fear, suspension and vunerability than if they stayed being an invisible third party watching everything. They are allowed to witness the sequence of events that happens on the morning of the kidnapping of the child, and allowed to see several flashbacks that the kidnapper is having to give them a better character understanding and feeling of enigma. We only chose certain scenes of that morning to allow the viewers to witness as we wanted them to be as clueless as the parents, although perhaps have a sense of dramatic irony as they have seen what the kidnapper did in the morning whereas the parents have no clue. This has the impact on the audience of making them feel slightly uneasy as they feel they know what has happened, but at the same time, is reassuring; a good aspect for our target audience.


• This links back to the generic conventions of thrillers and the creation of suspense, as we have caused enigma, dramatic irony (but held enough information back so they don't know the whole story), our intricate plot shown through various camera angles, the low angle shots showing the child in a situation that threatens danger, the narrative builds tension by placing the flashbacks closer together to fasten the pace, the park is an ordinary location with extraordinary events; the child goes missing, centered on the crime of child abduction, teh kidnapper is shown to be fallible through her mental illness by abducting the child, the audience watch the events which puts them in the position of voyeurs, and the mirroring shown through the story the kidnapper reads her child.

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

• Some strengths of the camera equipment include;
• We were provided with a tripod which helped us steady our shots greatly
• The cameras had a zoom in/ out button
• They were simple and easy to use
• An attatchable stick on the camera that allowed us to track effectively.
• Some weaknesses of the camera equipment include;
• We were unable to give an effective aerial shot as we wern't provided with a helicopter, but I think this can be forgiven.
• We also couldn't do crane shots as we didn't have a crane.
• We didn't have a moving vehicle to put our camera on, we just moved the camera ourselves.

• During the filming process, there were a few problems we faced, but managed to resolve these issues, for example;
• It was a very cold day and the child actor was unwilling to be outside, but with a little bribing (luckily a few scenes included sweets) he was ready to go.
• We found it hard to capture on film what we had in our heads, but once the storyboard was sorted and we worked out how to use the tripod it was all ok.
• We didn't know how to attatch the tripod to the camera at first, but knew this was vital due to our preliminary task, so got someone intelligent to work it out for us.
• It was hard to get the actors all available on the same day, so we had two separate shooting days; one involving all of them, and another just involving the child and kidnapper actors.
• We got to use equipment and techniques that we were new to, which enhanced our thriller as we only had a very basic knowledge of how to use the cameras and different shots. By reading through the handouts we were given by the teachers, and researching on the internet, we decided how best we could shoot conventions of thrillers whilst telling our story.


• The Editing software we used was Imovie on the Apple Macs. We have learnt a lot about editing, as neither of us had ever edited anthing before. There were there particular effects that we found useful for creating our overall mise en scene, such as the 'romantic' effect which slightly blurred the images around the edges and gave them soft undertones which we used for the flashbacks to look like a hazy memory in the kidnappers mind. We also liked the transition that we used for the flashbacks as it draws attention to the eye and blurs all the image so the audience can tell we are looking back through the kidnappers mind.


• We didn't use Garageband as we weren't told about it or provided with the software so I can't say we found it a useful programme for creating a suspenseful soundtrack. We were told to find our own music on the internet but to make sure we did it legally and that it was copyright free. We found a site called FreePlay, which as the name suggests, were free, legal, copyright free songs. On there we could type in the search engine the type of music we were looking for and download our chosen one. We typed in 'lullaby', and on first hearing, we didn't like any of them. However, once the editing process was complete, and we listened to them again, we decided the music suited our thriller perfectly and gave that finishing touch it needed. We faced a few challenges during this process, as for starters we didn't know how to add the music to the video clip, which we learnt through trial and error. Once that was done, we tried listening to the tracks, but found it hard to concentrate while everyone else was playing their music out loud too; however, we plugged in our earphones so we could only hear our own which worked like a treat. The biggest problem we faced however was that our music clip was about 10 seconds too short, which in a 2 minute thriller, is an awfully noticable long time. This meant all the graveyard scenes were music-less, and we listened to the thriller this way, but it just didn't sound right and wasn't effective. To resolve this, we played the first ten seconds of the song, then imported the song again, so we effectively played the beginning 10 seconds twice. We felt this was the best way to get around the problem as this was definitely the music we wanted, and wasn't noticeable; even if it was, the audience wouldn't be aware of it as they would assume thats how its meant to sound.


• Through sourcing music from the internet, we learnt its easy enough to download free music, its just knowing whether you are doing it legally or not as some sites do not specifically say. To make sure we didn't use an illegal site, we asked the teacher for a few suggestions as we knew their knowledge was greater than ours of this. The issue of using copyright-free music is that sometimes its not very good which may be why its copyright free, so the rules for copyrighted music according to the Fair Use Act are that:

1. The person using the work of music must be for non-profit or educational purposes;
2. The copyrighted work must be suitable for educational use, criticism, research or other non-revenue-generating uses;
3. The work must not be used in its entirety or presented in its entirety without adding any commentary or supplemental educational material;
4. The use of the music work must not alter the value or accessibility of the work to others purchasing or paying royalty fees for commercial use of the work.

Although we fell under all of these categories, we felt royalty free music was a cheap, easy, quick and convenient way of downloading music. We also found it was easier to find what we were looking for as its more focused on certain moods, genres and themes whilst still being of a high quality you would expect from copyrighted music. Sites like Freeplay are designed for people for us, so why not use them?

7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

• During the planning stage of our preliminary, we didn't draw a detailed enough storyboard so when it came to shooting, we found it hard to know who should go where and what they should say. We learnt by this so that for our main task we had lengthy notes and detailed storyboards so there wouldn't be any confusion as there was before.
• We didn't do much research into the genre we were filming, so we weren't sure what techniques this genre typically used. We guessed this by films we had already seen in this genre, but knew definitely not to do this for our main task as its much more important that we get it right.
• The storyboarding of our preliminary was very vague, and we only had a rough idea of what we wanted the actors to say, there was no specific script. I think this showed through our filming, as a lot of editing had to be done when the actors weren't sure of what they were saying or if we weren't either! So of course now we have learnt to PLAN!
• Producing our shooting schedule was easy for our preliminary- we were given the cameras one lesson and used whatever props and actors were available in school. Of course this is entirely different to the detailed planning of our main task, as it mattered which actors we had and when they were available was when we had to shoot. However, we mainly learnt that in order to make the process of filming and editing smoother, our preliminary helped us produce a thriller as we now knew what shots we needed to plan and capture and what order to edit it in. We mainly filmed the thriller in chronological order so as to stick to the storyboard as much as possible and not get confused, although we shot the flashback scenes on another day due to availability of the actors.
• Our use of specific shot types has definitely improved; before we didn't use any match on action or point of view shots as we weren't sure how to, but I think we nailed it with our main task. This was down to that old saying 'practice makes perfect' and lots of careful planning. We certainly benefitted from the tripod which we didn't use in our preliminary, as it was only after watching our preliminary on the computers we realised how great the need for a tripod was. We are much better at doing over the shoulder shots now as well, because unlike in the preliminary, where we literally sat the camera on the actors shoulder (!) , we learnt to position the camera on the tripod behind the actors shoulder instead, which had a much better effect. We now feel more confident with the equipment, and would be happy to use it again knowing what we know now.


• I feel very successful and proud of our thriller as I feel it not only conforms but also challenges some of the conventions of openings to thrillers. It is original, produced by ourselves, and the end product certainly fulfils the task we were given to make the opening 2 minutes of a new thriller film.

Take a look for yourself!