AS Media - Amber Atheton & Katie Jones

Brief

For our AS Media Coursework, we were set a brief to complete two exercises:

First the Preliminary exercise - A continuity task, involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialouge. Demonstrating a match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Secondly the Main task - The titles and opening of a new fiction thriller film, to last from a minimum of two minutes to a maximum of four minuets. Where all video and audio material must be original, and produced by us as the candidates, with the exception of copyright-free sources.

Research

After understanding the brief we had been set, we decided to research into what a thriller actually is, as it's usually confused with a horror. A thriller is usually part of a film or book which can also be produced over the radio in comic strips, in the theatre or on television, which keeps the viewer/ reader on the edge of their seats with suspense.
A thriller is a very popular genre often appreciated world wide. The fast pacing and complex plots keep people attached and intrigued, wanting to find out more. Many sub-genres are within this genre when one genre overlaps the other, such as action thriller, comedic thriller, crime thriller, drama thriller, erotic thriller, fantasy thriller, horror thriller, mystery thriller, psychological thriller and the list goes on.


We researched into different films one of these being Resident Evil 3 : Extinction

Directed by Russell Mulcahy, and written by Paul W.S Anderson.
Plot: The survivors of the Raccoon City catastrophe travel across the Nevada desert, hoping to make it to Alaska. Alice joins the caravan and their fight against the evil Umbrella Corp to survive extinction against hordes of zombies, killer crows and the most terrifying creatures created as a result of the deadly T-Virus that has killed millions.

We like the opening to this because it is quite mysterious and intriguing, making the viewer want to carry on watching the film until the end. By introducing the character into the film and initially knowing nothing about her, straight away with help from the camera shots, mise-en-scene editing and sound, it begins telling us about her. This is more of a Horror/Sci-Fi / Action genre, but it definitley has aspects of a thriller included into the film.


Another film that we looked at was Se7en.

Directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker.
Plot: A police drama about two cops, one new at his job the other about to retire. The plot revolves around a serial killer using the seven deadly sins, one sin at a time. The sin of Gluttony comes first and the murderer's terrible capacity is graphically demonstrated in the dark and subdued tones characteristic of film noir. The seasoned and cultured Sommerset researches the Seven Deadly Sins in an effort to understand the killer's modus operandi while green Detective Mills scoffs at his efforts to get inside the mind of the killer. Released in the UK in 1996, receiving 19 awards and nominated for another 17.

The genre of this film is a crime / mystery / thriller. The opening to this film is good and we feel it could inspire us as we really like the jumping clips, as it messes with your head and is quite confusing.

Having researched into these films we then had a clearer picture in our heads of what we wished to create, being inspired by both of these two films.

Planning

After considering and discussing our thoughts about the thriller, including watching various other examples of thriller films, we made a spider diagram with all our ideas which we believed, if used, would prove to be successful. These included ideas such as the story line for the whole piece, the camera shots we might use, the music, editing, props, sets, actors and other minor details we thought would be needed for the thriller opening. Capturing an eerie, surreal feel to the whole piece became a priority with an emphasis on inner torture of the soul and emotions.

Sound

Music became one of the most important aspects of the planning process as we needed to discover a perfect piece of music to create the right atmosphere within the opening scenes, as the first few seconds of a film either captures the attention of the audience or loses it completely. Therefore this needed to be relevant, moody, atmospheric and specific to the plot. This involved intensive time in listening to various pieces of music from all genres, and researching into different sounds, lyrics, tempo, instruments used, and generally the feeling the music evokes.

Camera Angles and Shots

Looking at openings to different thrillers, usually, only one character is fully introduced. We wished to use various camera shots, including many close ups and extreme close ups, few establishing shots, maybe one shot reverse shot, a few tableaux shots and low and high angled shots.

Mise-en-scene

Wanting to keep it quite simplistic at the opening of our thriller, just a busy street, lots of traffic passing and many street lights and car lights. Contrasting with the innocence of the girl when she is in her house, lots of typical things you would find in a home. The unusualness of her getting in the bath in all her clothes is something we quite liked about our film, because obviously something has caused her distress and anxiety.

Editing

Editing we thought would be a large part of our production, and many hours would go into this as it would in any good film. We wanted to have some very quick clips throughout the piece, and darkening some of the clips on the man against all the traffic, so it had a big contrast with the girl in her house and in the bath which are lighter, softer clips, showing her innocence compared to his.

Film Classification

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is an independent company, which have been classifying films since it was set up in 1912, and videos since an Act of Video Recordings was passed in 1984.

There are 7 main classification stages. the first being 'U'- Universal, then 'PG'- Parental Guidance, 12A, 12, 15, 18, R18.

Suitable for 12 years and over. No-one younger than 12 may see a ‘12A’ film in a cinema unless accompanied by an adult. No-one younger than 12 may rent or buy a ‘12’ rated video or DVD. Responsibility for allowing under-12s to view lies with the accompanying or supervising adult. Mature themes are acceptable, but their treatment must be suitable for young teenagers.
The use of strong language must be infrequent. Racist abuse is also of particular concern. Violence must not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood. Sexual violence may only be implied or briefly and discreetly indicated. Sustained moderate threat and menace are permitted and occasional gory moments only.

Suitable only for 15 years and over. No-one younger than this age may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema. No-one younger than 15 may rent or buy a ‘15’ rated video or DVD.
No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate to 15 year olds. There may be frequent use of strong language. But the strongest terms will be acceptable only where justified by the context. Continued aggressive use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.Violence may be strong but may not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. Scenes of sexual violence must be discreet and brief.Strong threat and menace are permitted. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable.

Suitable only for adults. No-one younger than 18 may see an ‘18’ film in a cinema. No-one younger than 18 may rent or buy an ‘18’ rated video.
In line with the consistent findings of the BBFC's public consultations, at '18' the BBFC's guideline concerns will not normally override the wish that adults should be free to chose their own entertainment, within the law. Exceptions are most likely in the following areas:where material or treatment appears to the Board to risk harm to individuals or, through their behaviour, to society and the more explicit images of sexual activity.

We chose the classification of age 15 for our film, because its not too violent to be an 18, but it will have too much violence and injury for it to be a 12 classification.

Preliminary exercise

This is our preliminary exercise, which myself, Katie and Kim all worked on together. Our brief was to show a character entering a room and exchange some dialouge with another character inside the room. Along with this, this exercise must show the 180 degree rule and shot reverse/shot.

Starting out with a long shot of Katie walking towards a door, and then a close up of her opening it. Next a reverse shot of her entering the room follows this. These series of shots conform to the 180 degree rule, which was then applied again as Katie walks across the room in a series of mid shots and then sits on a chair next to Amber. Following this is the shot reverse shot, with the camera beginning on the left of Amber. This then changes to the right hand shoulder of Katie as Amber responds. Once Katie starts to speak again the camera moves back to the left hand side of Amber.

There is both diagetic and non-diagetic sound in this short film. The diagetic sound being both Amber and Katie talking to one another, and the non- diagetic sound which is the track that plays quietly over the top of our voices. We chose to use this song because the start of the track is it like a warning sound suggesting danger, which can suggest to the viewer what may happen.

Even though this film is short, we think it is successful, because we achieved all which was required to complete the brief successfully, and we used a wide range of camera shots and angles.







Thriller Plot


We begun to plot out our story for the thriller, from the ideas we had chosen to proceed with from our previous planning.

Once Katie turns 18, a letter is found addressed to her, telling her about the death of her mother( who was killed many years before, when Katie was 5) . No one knew how, who or even why she had been killed, until now. The killer himself, reveals the story of her mothers mysterious death, the reasons behind it and the reasons for the events to come in the future. The blame was placed upon Ben Robins ( the killer) who then later reveals it was not all his liability as it was thought to have been. Having psychological problems after the death, and not being able to function adequately left him in a mental institution later on in the film. As the year carries on, more and more of the incidents mystery and reasoning behind it is discovered.

To start of with, we did not want to be introducing too many characters within the first opening scene, so we just showed the viewers two characters, Ben Robins ( the killer, the man standing next to all the passing cars) and Katie Jones ( the girl in the bath), but we did not want much revealed about ether of them yet, only showing some unusual characteristics, other parts of their personality would be revealed later on in the film.

The genre of this film is a 'Psychological Thriller', as we wanted it to be because it can mess with the viewers mind, and alter the ways something is perceived.






Location

Picking the right location was a very important part of this as we wanted to show that it is a thriller, but if we picked the wrong location it could have made it look more like a horror which is an easy mistake which we did not want to make. We chose the edge of a busy road to film on because as time passed, the street lamps will turn on and lots of traffic will pass also showing lots of light, as the clouds pass overhead.

For the indoor scene, we thought using my own house would be best as if was tidy, and had lots of room, also the bathroom has red walls, and red can usually be associated with blood, death, pain or hate, usually strong feelings, which was good for the bath scene and cutting in between scenes.

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Naming our Film

This was also quite an important part of our overall film, we needed to think about what is happening later on in the film so the name will also fit in with that. Many different name ideas passed us by within this process, but we wanted a name that could really relate to the film itself.

A MansLaughter - After creating a mind map and discussing our films events, this seemed the right name to choose, as its A Mans Laughter, but also a play on the words Man Slaughter. This is relating to the fact that often, as its found in this film and many others like it, when there's been a killing, the man more often than not gets away with it, which in a court of law, man slaughter is a lesser sentence than murder, therefore the man walks away laughing. Here we believed we had found the right name for our film, and it shall help make it a success.

A MansLaughter

Below is our final film we created, A MansLaughter- Amber Atherton & Katie Jones.

The quality of this film has been affected by downloading it onto my computer and is not as good after uploading it to Youtube which is a shame. The quality of the film is much better on the disk, not as dark, and the titles are much more read-able. This has taken us many weeks to plan, write, film, edit and fully produce and overall we are very proud of the outcome and think it is a great success as it fully achieves what the brief asks.






Audience Feedback


We were able to discover audience opinions about our final production 'A MansLaughter' through the use of Facebook, Youtube, and talking to the viewers. Audience feedback is useful in any media production area but especially films, as its such a competitive market with so many film premiers every week, if a film dose not make a killer opening in its first week of being up on the cinema screens, it usually has no chance.
So here we thought we would take the opportunity to ask our audience what they thought about our film, what they liked, disliked, and where they thought areas could have been improved.

Kimmy2303-

'This defiantly portrays an unnerving atmosphere to the audience and completely conforms to the conventions of a thriller demonstrating the representation of both Victim and Villain. The unusual camera composition and surreal imagery of girl in the bath and the implied villain truly captures the audiences attention along with the eerie and synchronous soundtrack. Clearly lots of hard work has paid off. Well done.'


B.B.willsman-
' From the very beginning of watching this it creates a real atmosphere of unease in the surroundings. As the suspense builds up with all the flashing imagery, it lets us see the dark side of the man's personality. It was quite dark in some areas which was a shame because it was hard to make out what was happening at one point, but apart from that I can see no faults, a really good start and I want to see how the rest of the film turns out. '


Zoe4488-
' I really enjoyed this! I thought the music was such a good match to the events on the screen, and loved all the quick slick cuts, the editing is brilliant, really clever in some areas, showing the contrast between the two characters. Really good job, hope to see more films like this. The only downside to it, is that at the end you can't really tell whats going on when he is standing by the alley, it's a bit too dark.'


TommyH89-
' Well done here, it looks really professional, and if it was a full film, what a success it would be. A few criticisms though, the writing is quite hard to read as it only stays on the screen for a few seconds, maybe choosing a different font and making it larger would have benefited you, and it's dark in some areas so it's unclear to see what's happening. Nothing else I can think of apart from these two points. The editing of the clips is well done, and love how the street lights and clouds move over time.'


Filmsareus09-
' Hey guys, this is a great opening! Love the choice in sound too, Radio Head, classic. I like how it's not a typical teen thriller/ horror, it's suggesting no murder, as of yet, just some strange events which will possibly go on in the film the further you get into it. Using the girl in the bath, is unusual but I like it, she is obviously distressed about something and overdosing, getting drunk and drowning herself seems a way out. The quick cuts of the man by the busy road inter- twined with these clips of the girl is really good and I believe if this was in the cinemas it would be a hit!'

Overall, we are pleased with the feedback we received, no particular faults that people saw with the piece which is really delighting to know.







Evaluation of A MansLaughter




Our media production, A MansLaughter, we believe it to be a success. All the hours of work that was put into it over the past few months, has finally paid off with a great opening to a psychological thriller film.

Within our media production, from the beginning of the film, we start to show our representation of two different social groups. One of these being the girl, who would be from a typical teenage group, adolescents who enjoy going out, having a laugh with friends, partying, drinking, and the usual aspects you would find within this particular social group. In contrast, there is the man's social group. He is shown to be someone who is lonely to begin with, an isolated loner, but then as time passes, revealing he's perhaps not so innocent and there is a reason why he's standing on the edge of a road by himself. Later on in the film this character is placed in a mental institute, the group he has been selected to be joined in is portrayed as a form of abnormality.


Distributing a film is one of the most vital parts of the process in all films, as this includes the advertising. Commonly known, everything and anything can be advertised through television, on posters, large bill boards, over the radio, in magazines and newspapers, and this is all around the world. Part of the accomplishment from the opening night of a new showing film in a cinema, comes from the advertising, as without this, no one would be made aware of the date, times, places of the event, and it would not be a success. People who work in advertising first of all need to understand who their target audience is, before putting anything on adverts or on the radio. If something was targeted to the typical housewife, the adverts would be on during day time television, as this is the time when they are most likely to be at home, and the advert will be seen. If there was a production and the objective viewers were children, say aged 7-12, the adverts would usually be placed after 3.30, when most schools would have closed for the day and the children would be at home.

Our audience for 'A MansLaughter', would be anyone from the age of 15 to around the age of 40, but the target age would probably be 15 - 25 year olds. This is because we chose 15 as the age classification for our media production, as there would be too much violence and aggressive language for it to be a 12A / 12 classification age, but there is not an excessive amount for it to be an 18 classification age.
For distrubuting this product, we would create many posters, and place them around some large cities, on bill boards, bus stops and the sides of buses. Possibly place an advert on the radio, but this would only be on a popular, well listened to radio station and show. One such as Radio 1, Fern and Reggies show, which airs from 12pm-4pm, as we believe this is the time our target audience would most likely listen to the radio. As for adverts on the television, we would set them to be in between the times of 7.30pm-11.30pm, and we would only place them on various channels which are popular with this ages group, such as Channel4 and E4.


We feel that we have attracted our audience through many ways, these being, mainly our strong story line, which really intrigues the viewers as to what shall happen throughout the film, leaving them hanging on who the characters are and why they are in these situations. As it's a psychological thriller, we believe this genre always lure the viewers into wanting to watch more, as it plays with the mind, and with this in mind, it will hopefully inspire people to go to the cinema to watch the film.


Throughout the creation of our production of A MansLaughter, we have constantly been learning about different media technological aspects as we went along. Using the cameras, and all the different functions on them to enable us to film at better quality and get the shots we wished to achieve, along with help from all the different camera shots and angles we have learnt about, we were able to convey different meanings. These can be the internal shots of a characters mind. The apple laptops, where we found our editing skills from the beginning were very poor, they gradually started to improve as we kept editing the filming more and more. We both developed the skills needed to use the apple mac, cutting film clips, editing one clip with another, flashing clips, increasing and reducing the speed of clips, adding the titles, music, and transactions to the film became the final touches. We have kept our piece so the viewers are intrigued all the way through out it and it flows well.


Looking back at our Preliminary task now, we feel it was a good experience, it had given us the chance to play around and try and work out how to use all the equipment, making a few mistakes, before beginning our thriller opening. Comparing our Preliminary task, to the final product you can tell how much our filming and editing skills have been improved. We did not use that many different complicated camera angles or shots in the first exercise - the preliminary task, this shows in the quality of the preliminary work as it is not as professional looking. Our second task - the thriller opening, flowed so much better, looked more classy, and very profesional. When we were at the filming stage of this task it is easily said that our planning skills had also improved, we had prepared all our props, set a time, and date as to when we were going to film and then we applied ourselves to get stuck in and work.



Overall, we are very please with our final production. After all the planning and choosing the correct song which fitted with the film, the set and everything else that went into this, we feel that we have created an effective, realistic believable story which we made into a film.
We varied the use of lighting for the different shots, showing diverse emotions in the scenes which cut from one character to the other, reflect upon their thoughts and feelings during the situation. This is why we used many close up's, to show the reactions, and try to get the viewer to see their emotions going through there heads.
Filming on the street in the half light, whilst cars passed with their headlamps on, as it gradually gets more into night time, the lights brighten up, and all the street lamps turn on, one by one, For this we used a wide shot, to view all the skyline, as the sun sets and the clouds passed overhead, it turned to twilight. When editing this, we found as we sped up these clips, it was a good shot to use, as everything passes this man by with great speed as the man just stands there, it reflects upon the surroundings and thoughts going through his head.
These clips are split up with the distressed girl in the bath, as it believes that she drowns, but then near the end she comes up from the water gasping for breath, this clip is followed by an extreeme close up on the man's face, suggesting he is something to do with this.
We feel a MansLaughter looks professional, and quite stylish, with all the slick editing, and the simplicity of the music in the background.
Producing this film was really enjoyable, especially the editing. It's rewarding to think that everything you see on the film we had wrote, planned and produced. The only change we would think to make is possibly lighting some of the clips at the end of the film, as these were quite unclear as the audience had stated, but apart from that we are really proud of our final piece.