Evaluation

This is the evaluation for our Thriller Opening Task. I used a wide variety of media to present my evaluation.

Finished film 'Undefined Reality'.

This is our final film opening for the film 'Undefined Reality'. It took a lot of effort to make the film opening, but I a very proud of the outcome.

Extra Feedback of the production stage

At the end of the production stage, we showed some other media students our project courtesy of Max Biddlecombe. We overall received positive feedback, and allowed us to make some final tweaks to the product. They gave unbiased opinions on the product, and we used their constructive criticism

 

New Company Logo

We have made a new company logo due to the lack of quality of the old one. This was made by Max Bradbury. It was made using Windows Movie Maker and we made sure the image was copyright free.

Filming 9.2.15

This has our filming schedule and our risk assessment for the filming of the most recent filming session. This is our last filming session as we have all the footage we need, and have started editing.

Updated storyboard

 This is our updated storyboard. Not much has changed overall, but some changes such as some camera angles and features have been changed. Credit to Andreas for the new storyboard.

Practice soundtrack

This was a soundtrack that Max Bradbury made as a demo for our thriller. This was great as we got to see what kind of sound we can use for backing on our piece.
https://soundcloud.com/max-bradbury-1/demo

Filming 17.01.15

Over the weekend, our group went filming to acquire footage. We assessed the risks, and prevented the risks. There were many great shots we got to use.

There were, however, some moments that we got to loom around. Here, Andreas and the Max's found some rather large pieces of ice.

There was a lot of footage we got; utilising two hours worth of filming time. However, as with all films, there were outtakes. This was were I was supposed to be knocked down by a sheet of 'glass', but there was a slight issue with the aim.

 

Company Logo

This is our company logo at the moment. There is subject to change, but this is potentially the final version.

Character Profiles

This is a PowerPoint video about our characters in the thriller. Enjoy!

Plot/Narrative

The plot of the film involves a murderer; a patient with multiple personality disorder called Bruce Stringer. But his multiple personalities take the better of him as he attempts to see the difference between reality and fiction. However, a murder occurs and there was a witness. This witness was David Croft. As Dave tries to convince people of the murder he witnessed, people begin to lose trust in him. As he continues aimlessly to try to prove he witnessed the murder, police begin to hunt him down. Dave better get away, or is it Bruce?

This was written by myself, but the other members of the group helped in the creating of the plot.

The Script

This is the script for the opening scenes of the thriller.

Appropriate Audience theories

Audience theory provides a starting point for many Media Studies tasks. Whether you are constructing a text or analysing one, you will need to consider the destination of that text and how that audience will respond to that text.

Over the course of the past century or so, media analysts have developed several effects models, such as theoretical explanations of how humans consume the information created by media texts and how this might influence a persons behaviour. Effects theory is still a debated area of Media, as no one is able to come up with indisputable evidence that audiences will always react to media texts one way or another.

The Hypodermic Needle Model
Dating from the 1920s, this theory was the first attempt to explain how mass audiences might react to mass media.
 The Hypodermic Needle Model suggests that the information from a text passes into the mass consciousness of the audience, for example the experience, intelligence and opinion of an individual are not relevant to the reception of the text. This theory suggests that people are manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that our behaviour and thinking might be easily changed by media-makers.          

Two-Step Flow

As the mass media became an essential part of life in societies around the world. Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet analysed the voters' decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential election campaign in the US and published their results in a book called "The People's Choice".

Their findings suggested that the information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active associates, over whom they have influence. The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, this making them influenced but not by a direct process, but by a two step flow.

Uses & Gratifications

During the 1960s, as the first generation to grow up with television became grown ups, it became increasingly apparent to media theorists that audiences made choices about what they did when consuming texts. Far from being a passive mass, audiences were made up of individuals who actively consumed texts for different reasons and in different ways. In 1948 Lasswell suggested that media texts had the following functions for individuals and society; surveillance, correlation, entertainment & cultural transmission.

Researchers Blumler and Katz expanded this theory and published their own in 1974, stating that individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes for example the Uses and Gratifications theory shows diversion, personal relationships, personal identity, surveillance and a wider list as ways of consuming media texts.

Reception Theory

Extending the concept of an active audience still further, in the 1980s and 1990s a lot of work was done on the way individuals received and interpreted a text, and how their individual circumstances  affected their reading. These included things like age and ethnicity.

This work was based on Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model of the relationship between text and audience. The text is encoded by the producer, and decoded by the reader. There are very different things seen between the two. However, by using recognised codes and conventions, and by drawing upon audience expectations relating to aspects such as genre and use of stars, the producers can position the audience and thus create a certain amount of agreement on what the code means.

Cultivation Theory

A theory we looked at is the Cultivation theory. This is an audience theory that was looked into by George Gerbner and Larry Gross. This looked at how people are influenced by the media in negative way. This can be when violence is used in media such as video games and films, and it influenced the audience to commit similar actions. This theory is useful as it makes creators think about what the audience may do in response to the film, and how it should be avoided.

Marketing and Promotion

We looked into marketing and research as it would be helpful to see how companies appeal to different age groups, and how to advertise our thriller opening. We need to hit the right audience, and wanted to find out how these companies do so.

Storyboard

We have worked on a storyboard for our thriller opening. This is our storyboard at the moment, but subject to change as we have not completely decided on some shots and the weapon as of yet, but things will remain mostly the same.

Side 1: We used a variety of shots the show the scenery and the murder taking place, such as a wide shot of the scene, a two-shot of the characters, and an over the shoulder shot to make the audience believe someone is behind the victim. The two-shot shows the binary opposites between the characters.

Side 2: This has the victim on the floor crawling away, and looking inferior to the killer. This is done by multiple shots, such as a low-angle shots. The victim crawls pass the camera to show how slow they walk, and the killer walks slowly as a cliché to kill the victim. The over-the-shoulder shot shows the height difference between the characters.

Side 3: In this scene the witness (protagonist) has seen the murder take place and the murderer looks at his own reflection and the notices the witness in which he turns to and then it ends to insinuate that this isn't the only murder to happen or that the murderer is going to get caught. In the last two boxes, we use a shot/reverse shot to show the emotion on both the murderers face and the witnesses face and the next action they are going to take.

Editing analysis of 'Before I Go To Sleep'

In the opening of the film, there was text used for the title. The text was white on black background; commonly associated with thrillers. The text then begins to distort away after a brief period of time; relating to the film with a theme of things being forgotten and drifting away. The style used is mysterious and intriguing as it disappears into smoke; signalling some form of mystery being in the film.

In the opening, there were many eye-line matches used; pro-dominantly of the womans' perspective. The cuts from her eyes to what she looks at are varied in length; some being quick cuts were others take time before the cut is used. The quick cuts are used for dramatic effect, and show the fear of the woman as she has no memory. The longer cuts allow the audience to take in what the woman is looking at. Eye-line matches are often used in thrillers as they induce tension and allow the audience to connect with the characters much easier.

Finally, there was use of a shaky camera on purpose. This was done when the woman moves from the bed into the other room. The camera shake was done to induce tension and a sense of fear as the woman was confused about the situation. The woman moves fairly quickly; the camera following shakily to represent the feelings of the woman at the time.