Social grouping
We have chosen a younger generation for our social group, focusing on how they deal with jealousy, secrecy and bereavement. During our 2 minute introduction to the film, a girl kills one of her ‘best friends.’ As horrifying as this scenario is, she shows no emotion or compassion for what she has done, her general nature is nonchalant. This is not how a typical teenager would react to a serious dilemma. We decided to incorporate this into our film to give an insight in to the teenage minorities life choices. The character of the girl is the complete opposite to how a ‘normal’ teen would act as well as having different mannerisms. This shows how the minority of teenagers would act in these situations, I believe this can attract our desired audience and it is something unusual to them which would intrigue them to watch the synopsis unfold without any predictable scenarios. I feel this is a key feature needed in order to entertain an audience. The clothes and representation of the two actors during our 2 minute film is based around relevant and stereotypical clothing of a teenager. This decision was made so that the representation would be believable as well as making it easier for the younger generation to follow and relate to. With this we reached our objective as we delivered to our target audience.
Narrative Theories
Within our film we have included an example of binary opposition. This occurs within our music, our choices contrast between calm at the start which is interrupted by the wild noise of the washing machine followed by the crash. Secondly, binary opposition is introduced when the camera appears on the lifeless body and the girl acts completely nonchalant drinking the cup of tea. Finally; there is a conflicting theme between the ripping of the picture and the girls grin concluding. With the oppositions included we can cut corners enabling us to affect the audience more quickly as it is something they would not expect to happen, it catches them off guard making the event more memorable.
Normal Conventions
The stereotypical way to film a thriller is to keep the audience guessing and asking questions throughout the film. In conclusion we decided to do this by creating a typical ‘who dun-it’ plot for a murder. A conventional way to present this is by showing two different suspects performing the same set of actions in two different scenes e.g. committing the killing, thus identifying multiple suspects where only one is guilty or implying a schizophrenic character. We chose ‘Compassionate’ as the title because thrillers usually have a title which sounds sinister and intriguing, this then implies a piece of the story-line. Our title particularly piques our audience’s curiosity because within the first two minutes of our film, the female character shows extreme signs of not being compassionate, creating a twist in the synopsis. An illustration of this technique is from ‘The Exorcist’, this title represents what the film as a whole is about but also makes the audience think and curious about what is actually in the plot.
Developed Conventions
Instead of having our film consist of a typical schizophrenic synopsis we experimented with the frame switching of possible killers in the beginning of our film. A director would use the typical set-up of two or more characters performing the murder and at different stages of the film. Instead of following this trend, we decided to only show the murder scene once but cut to frames with a different character performing the same task and in the same location, however the ‘mise en scene’ i.e. costumes would be different to illustrate the change of character. I feel using this method is more effective as all the possibilities are shown at a quick pace, maintaining the audiences curiosity as they have to keep asking questions of who the actual killer is. I believe this is a much more exciting way of presenting a typical thriller set-up as it is original and not often used, adding to the suspense of what is going to happen.
Another developed convention we included was our title choice. It purposely doesn’t relate to the synopsis of the film as not many characters actually show any compassion throughout the scenarios. We deliberately used binary opposition within the title as we wanted to incorporate a distribution of irony. This is another form of catching the audience off guard as they immediately believe that the film will somewhere consist of a merciful, sympathetic nature, after this assumption they are mistaken concluding with an even greater interest of the viewer.
Channel and Audience
If our film was to be broadcasted, we have chosen Channel 4 to be our choice, as this channel targets and entertains our desired audiences; teenagers and young adults. We also decided that our film would be shown at 9 p.m. or a similar time as our ideal viewers have free time and regularly watch TV around this time. In addition, Channel 4 usually show films which are directed at a young audience which include a variety of factors such as chick-flicks, comedies, horrors and thrillers. Further more with the watershed, it gives us a chance to freely include content which might need to be censored otherwise. This aids us in our goal to advertise effectively and beneficially as we can broadcast adverts on the channel as well as show the film to develop interest and enthusiasm about the film when it would eventually be brought out on a DVD/Blue Ray format. This enables our film to become well ingrained in the public eye as it is constantly marketed throughout the broadcasting period. I believe this would increase the demand for viewing from our target audience as the film would be shown on Channel 4 once, then be sold on DVD/Blue Ray not long after. This would then be the only way to view the film until the possibility of a repeat on E4 at a later date as the two channels have a connection with broadcasting similar/the same programmes and films, the film could also be advertised on E4 as well, increasing the chance of a bigger and wider audience which would be beneficial to the production of the film.
Questionnaire
To succeed in the reliable assessment of our film appealing to our target audience, we constructed a questionnaire for selected viewers to complete. The questions related to the opinions and preferences of film genres as well as what T.V. channels they regularly watch and at what times. We chose ten in total, some from our own age group (15-18 year olds) as well as some adults.
Preferred Genre of Film
The results from this graph show that males are more likely to watch thriller films than females. Because of this we decided our film would consist of the perspective and opinions of teenage girls throughout the synopsis. This includes numerous main characters being female as well as the synopsis including emotional scenarios which females are more prone to connect with, for example; a teenage girls relationship with a teenage boy. We wanted our film to attract both genders so we could experiment with a range of possible features within the film. To keep the male audience interested in the synopsis, the main character is a teenage boy. Because of this they can have a character to relate to as the character ‘Tom’ goes through different situations. The film also consists of a murder which is prone to attract a male audience as this feature usually interests them as it’s abnormal in everyday life. As females commonly dislike the event of a murder in a film, we incorporated the sentimental story line of the character ‘Alex’ and her Dad passing away when she was at a young age.
All of the people who completed the questionnaire commented that the film fitted the desired genre as throughout, it makes the audience ask questions as there is little information given. We were also given feedback on what we could improve for example the modulation of some of the sound effects. Illustrations of this happening in our film include the falling down the stairs of the characters body and the ripping of the picture. This helped me understand the nature of thrillers as the key is be subtle, even with sound as the genre is based around the unknown but it always concludes with the answers.
Preliminary Task and Technology
Before the shooting of our film commenced, I had to efficiently learn how to use the video cameras available as well as the movie making software on the computers i.e. iMovie. To do this I practiced filming with the camera while completing our task to shoot a person entering and walking across a room, then sitting opposite someone else and have a short conversation. As I was doing this I was able to grasp the concept of filming steadily as well as experimenting with different angles and shots such as; static shots, over the shoulder shots, top shots, mid shots, wide shots and close ups.
Also I was able to understand the purposes of other filming techniques e.g. panning, tracking, craning etc. This helped me a lot when filming the actual film as I could determine what kind of shot would be best to highlight the scenario/character. With the different types of software I learnt how to edit correctly for example; I found that the best way for a transition to take place between frames is to keep the focused object/ person in the frame just before cutting to the next frame. A beneficial feature I also practiced was how to add sound tracks, sound effects and credits to a film. Additionally I found that the best way to film without the camera shaking due from being hand held, is to use a counter weight, which is a heavy pole to balanced out the camera, this was a useful and efficient aid to filming our film. My skill in using Photoshop also increased as I decided to make a poster using this software to add to my portfolio. I found it difficult at first to grasp the knowledge in how to use every available tool but with practice I was able to successfully complete my poster.
Successes and Improvements
I believe that a strength in our film is our choice of music to accompany the action in the shot. We successfully included music that had an effective impact on the audience which aided them in immediately feeling the desired emotion based on what was happening in the film. Because of the music we enabled the viewers to cut corners by connecting with the films content maintaining their interest. An unplanned success which we achieved was the sound effect of the washing machine in the kitchen. As we were filming the tracking shot from the living room through the dining room to the kitchen we picked up the sound of the washing machine. We were able to use this ‘accident’ to our advantage as the pitch of the sound elevates as the camera moves to the spilt cup of tea, increasing the suspense as there is assistance in representing it’s importance to the synopsis. I also feel we succeeded in creating realistic sound effects. For example the sound of someone falling down the stairs was created by us recording the sound of multiple objects falling down them. In the editing process we were able to create the perfect sound to illustrate a real life body falling down the stairs as we included a cresendo of loud bangs to represent the body falling. Finally I feel that we accomplished the goal of creating a realistic thriller as we engaged with the components of successful examples such as ‘Memento’ and ‘The Shining.’ We did this by using subtle suggestions to the synopsis within the 2 minutes of film, we purposely didn’t reveal the murderer of the scene as we felt that because of this the audience would not be able to predict what happens next. This is a factor we hoped to maintain as this component is crucial to making a thriller film as the plot should be unknown until the very end. I believe that we have succeeded in encouraging our viewers to ask questions. I also feel the the use of camera angles used are examples of typical ones used in other popular thrillers, such as over the should shots to create tension as it gives the character the camera is in front a mysterious persona.
Improvements which we could make include the transitions from one frame to another. As the camera tracks through the kitchen the frame cuts from the window to panning across the kitchen. Unfortunately the transition is not as smooth as we would like because we didn’t have enough sufficient film to pick up the speed of the scene. A problem we had when editing is that at the beginning when the camera tracks around the house the perception of the frame looks like it’s someone actually walking around. Our aim was to track around the rooms to set the atomsphere and build tension with the help from the music choice. Because of this problem we decided to reshoot this part of the film with a counter weight to aid us in ending up with a steady shot, to lessen the impression of a character observing the house. This was an inconvenience to our production but I’m glad that we did as it make a difference to the effect on the audience.
