The change in idea

At first we wanted to do a slender man style film but because of difficulties getting the right props and the times we needed to shoot the film we have decided to change. In the end we stuck with the stalker idea and in ways the slender idea was still being used but we have changed a lot of it, characters and locations still remanded the same so we didn't have to spend ages find new stuff.

Mood Board

We put together a mood board of what we thought was the typical conventions of a thriller

Question 7 - LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

All of our preliminary tasks helped us to make this film as we wanted it, after learning about all the different shot types and doing some research on the genre we had an idea of what we wanted to do. 180 degree rule we did stick to as you can see in the exchange of views from both the protagonist and stalker we kept it over the same shoulder. A few examples of match on action as well were used especially when he enters the toilet to see him push from the outside and the next shot is him inside. The camera’s we all had a rough idea on how to use from our other subjects and all we really need was a tripod to help us. Our organisation wasn’t the best as we changed idea’s late and we had to go film it all near the rough cut deadline but when we did get all of the sorted the organisation of when we were going to edit was fine and set certain days and times which we stuck to. When researching the genre i did notice a theme of the typical conventions from the way it’s shot like tracking and establishing shots all the way to what is the most common thriller film which was Stalker films. Todorov’s five stages were present in most thriller films i watched but in the end we decided to go against it and cut out the fifth stage. With our questionnaire we were quite straight forward and asked them if they liked it and how they would improve it as we all thought that there was a lot of work needed to fix it. We also asked them though if they thought the certificate was right which they said yes and also if it would appeal to them which was another yes. The planning was key even though we changed our idea and were a bit pushed for time, but we planned every shot we were

going to use ready for the filming and after we turned up at lunchtimes to edit it and get the final copy finished. One a whole the technology was pretty straight forward to get the hang of and if we had made our minds up early i think we could’ve got a better film made and would’ve got more time to edit, but i’m pleased with our opening sequence and i stick to our idea.

Question 6 - WHAT HAVE I LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES IN THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING MY FILM SEQUENCE?

The learning process to making the film and not really knowing what to do has been the most enjoyable part because working as a group you find all these new ways to better your film and from that you can tweak it into what you want. The importance of how close you are to show the emotion on our protagonists face was key and also tracking him with the right amount of body showing to get the perfect body actions. Unless your doing a tracking shot you need to keep the camera still to let their body do the acting to shuffling the camera around to show heavy breathing or anxiousness. Final cut was simple to use and in the end we got what we thought was the right effects for our film to set the mood. Fade in/out between credits and shot at the beginning to show how calm the mood was and how everything effortlessly went into place, but then we put very small clips close together to create a fast paced almost heart beat like mood. Speeding clips up and speeding some down to get the right amount of time in each clip and also to slow or speed the film up. Colour correction to sort out some of the lighting because of our setting, the hand against the window we darkened everything apart from the natural light coming through the window to make the hand really stand out. Before this production i had used final cut in my film studies production where we learnt the basics and also started experimenting a lot more with different transitions and colour edits as well as learning about the power of black and white in a film. Funny games in the beginning where the song changes to a heavy rock song and they don’t even notice as they’ve been so busy listening to opera songs, this caught the audiences attention as it’s something they wouldn’t have expected to happen so early into the film. As i had already used soundtrack pro quite a lot i left the other two in my group to experiment to get the perfect sounds for our soundtrack and they mixed strings with loud drums and during some newspaper articles you would hear static perfectly in time with the clips so overall that worked fine. Motion was a bit new for me as i had only briefly used it in my other film so to do something completely different with newspaper articles was a challenge and it took at least one or two lessons to completely finish all articles in time with the soundtrack. We had other credits that we were going to use with smoke behind the letters while it was shaking but in the end we decided against it as it didn’t quite match what we had intended.

Question 5 - WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?

Our audience i would say is everyone from Lower Middle Class to those at the lowest level of subsistence. Our film isn’t to challenging to understand to follow so that means people wont just give up watching it because they’ve lost the plot. But also Middle Class and over i think wouldn’t enjoy it, i believe that this isn’t their sort of film but obviously there will be a few from the higher part of the socio-economic groups that will love and some in the lower half will hate it. They will have to like Thrillers and also the sub-genre of Stalker movies as to other people it might be a bit repetitive so a love for the stalker film is probably needed. When we research into who like Thriller films we found out that young male adults were the most popular and i would have to agree as thriller and horror films excite me more than a drama or even some comedies these days. We hope to attract all groups and genders as we don’t offer the same old Stalker film where the female victim kills the stalker and escapes we have decided to have a darker ending where the victim does not survive and instead is captured, we cut it off there and that can make everyone think what happens next. Location wise it doesn’t matter this film can be liked by anyone it doesn’t have a certain person in mind, if you target it at a certain person then it can end up being terrible to them and someone else might like it. As for taste they need to have a strong love for thriller and stalker films as well as liking difference not just the same old story, they need an open mind on what can happen as the ending is not explained to full detail and they will have to use their imagination to come up with and ending.

Question 4 - WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

The people that are mostly interested in Thriller films are young male adults (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Al6oZp_aOY), the action mixed with the suspense creates an ideal film for this target audience and keeps them entertained, this group also works for horror as they tend to prefer blood and killing a lot more than females and the older generation (http://rbsmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/target-audience-thriller-film.html). The idea that we chose i think would be more of a film four production as they tend to invest in low budget UK films and they are all different genres and styles(http://www.imdb.com/company/co0197272/?ref_=tt_dt_co). Lots of film four production films have made it big from relatively nothing, four lions a dark comedy had a low budget but achieved big when it came to awards after it’s release and the same for Slumdog Millionaire, Shaun of the Dead and Trainspotting. So companies like Film Four and Dimension will set a low budget but expect brilliant and different films, something that people might not have seen before. As for the marketing side a lot of that is done on social networking sites and for a small film like ours that would be a good place to start. Four Lions was advertised through social networking sites after it’s release in cinema as they thought it would reach a larger audience and in the end be more successful. Youtube is another growing way as you can advertise between videos so for a small independent company like Film Four it might be a cost effective way and also meeting new audiences. The UK film council did invest heavily into low budget UK films and over the eleven years it was going for they made great films like 28 Days Later and This is England, this was an organisation funded by the National Lottery.

Question 3 - HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

Our film represents two social groups, our protagonist being the normal everyday who may or may not be seen as the usual victim. He’s male which isn’t usually the case with stalker films, they tend to be female and they usually survive against the villain. He’d be classed as working class to the audience and his age could place him as one of the most vulnerable because he wouldn’t be able to protect himself against an attack. He looks like just like a average person so determining what region he’s from would be difficult and there’s no talking in the film. He seems like the kind of guy that could quite easily be pushed over if it came to it so in my opinion there was no better actor for the role as we don’t have to make people believe that he can be bullied like if it was a tall strong person. Our stalker on the other hand you barely see but he’s clearly a person with mental problems as he’s trying to destroy this persons life by kidnapping him. You see he wears tracksuits and typically chavs wear them so you get a rough idea of his class from that. But just like Eden Lake you wouldn’t expect youths to behind all of this so for one to stalk and kidnap our protagonist is a bit shocking. Apart from that the only other thing you can see about him is that he towers over our protagonist showing his power over him and making our story a bit more believable. As it’s a thriller the tracking shot was popular within our film showing a 180 degree of the protagonists POV, but would also turn around and look at the camera showing how scared he is. Close-ups were another big one as you can really see the panic on his face as he gets more weary of the presence around him, we would film within the Social bubble of Edward t. Hall’s personal bubble graph as this allowed us to captured the whole face and also some body movement when he would turn around to make sure. The stalker’s POV is used when he’s standing behind the tree, this was to show the stalkers first presence and also the distance at first between the protagonist and the stalker. The colours we chose were all dark like black and dark browns, this is because it’s not a happy film everything that happens is quite dark with the kidnapping so the colour scheme should match that. The colours also make the characters stand out with the light early morning setting that we had decided to shoot in.