Thriller evaluation

After watching a couple of example thriller films from the year before we decided that we would be different and challenge the normal thriller conventions. Rather then having a ‘bog standard’ thriller with normal conventions, like an action thriller or a political thriller we thought to create a supernatural thriller. Our way of being creative we used conventions borrowed from the horror genre. We used ideas from other thrillers but then modified them to make them more original.

The conventions of a normal thriller are:
· A race against time
· Contains a lot of violence
· An obvious antagonist
· Lots of guns explosions
· Large elaborate mise-en-scene for the action to take place





The conventions of a supernatural thriller are:
· A conflict between the main character and a super natural force
· Combines the tension of a action thriller with basic instruments of horror like ghost



So for our opening we decided to have a supernatural force battling with our main protagonist, our protagonist being a teenaged female. Rather then a male one, which we usually see. In our opening instead of having the female portrayed as a damsel in distress as they usually are, we have made ours the lead, and given her all the power. But she is heavily isolated so it takes this feel away from the opening, and she seems weak once again.

Another film with a female protagonist

The target audience for my Thriller will be teenagers to young adults, from the age of 16 to about 25. It will appeal highly to them because our film is very similar to a horror/ sci-fi. A typical person who would see our thriller is 18-year-old male Luke, who spends all week working part time and at UNI, on the weekends likes to relax by going out with friends and frequently visits the cinema.



Promotion of films can be the biggest downfall to most films so here are the best ways for our film to get the best advertisement:
· On TV, the Internet via pop-ups & online trailers, the films official website
· In cinemas before bigger name films start showing a trailer
· The radio also could be used
· Posters could be placed around advertising the film, at bus shelters, on busses, billboards etc.

Our video has already been placed on the Internet at http://www.vineo.com/
Because the Internet is available to everyone this means we increase our target audience as people will see our film and then inform friends about it.
We could use social networking sites along with video sites to promote our video. A successful film which was 1st advertised on a social networking site was Adulthood, everyone knew about the film 3 months before it was due to be released in the cinemas thanks to their site on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/adulthoodthemovie
Teenagers and young adults use social networking sites a lot to communicate with and make new friends. Our target audience, sometimes on a daily basis, uses them frequently. So this is the perfect way for us to reach them, it is also free for all to use, so anyone on these sites could find out about our film. The main sites we will use will be Facebook, Myspace & Youtube.



In order for our film to be the best it could we had to make use of all the equipment available to us, from digital cameras to the colleges Apple Mac PCs. We had to get used to them all very quickly, and all the media terminology, so we could name all the shots we used and all the effects so we could describe them. We focused on using pans to elaborate on the protagonist isolation as she’s walking though the park.


This shot is like the opening of 28 Days later when their main protagonist is walking through the empty streets of London.




We start to use more low angle shots as the opening draws to an ending.

This shot is like the one at the start of Arlington road, were the boy is walking but his vision is blurred and it focuses on his feet, we decided to use a zoom blur here.


We had already planned most of the shots already and some were changed when we actually started filming as you can see.



The Apple Macs we used to put our films together already had the programs we needed to do it built in. they were all relatively easy to use, they were Soundtrack Pro & Final cut Pro.


We used Final Cut Pro to get our different shots from the camera to the computer, called logging and capturing, this is the easiest part of this process. We then had to put all the shots together with good continuity; we also had to use different effects to make the film look professional and everything to work together.
This is our final film in Final Cut Pro, after we have added the soundtrack; this is before we have added the end shots of the main protagonist hanging, we also got the idea of the collection of fast shots with the white effect from Arlington Road.
















My Group also made use of soundtrack pro to create our own soundtrack. I wasn’t really good at this so the other group members took over. There was a wide range of sounds to choose from and in the end they settled for a slightly minimalist drone going throughout the duration of the film.



We had planned fully for the final film as are 1st two preliminary films suffered because of a lack of organisation. When you plan you know in advance what your doing, the type of shots your using so you can get straight down to it, when you plan ahead you can also improvise a lot and it will not affect your work because you already know what you want to achieve. We also had learnt to put our all in to the editing of the film because obviously this is the make or break point, you could have the best shots but the below par editing and your thriller wouldn’t look good and vice versa. We were told continuously by teachers and classmates we should of ended with a shot of the protagonist waking up at the end, but on the day we missed the chance to do it. That was the one major criticism we received. Our class and teachers alike complimented us on our P.O.V shot of the protagonist tying the noose on the tree. The fact that we never went over the top with our effects, they particularly liked the slow motion shot of the protagonist tossing and turning in the bed, and the speeded up section of her going through all the different stages. The narrative of her in the bed, and our‘dazzling’ end scene.