Preliminary Task

Visitors film opening

1-In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our film opening "visitpors" was inspired from several psychological thriller films, prior to filming our opening we looked at a few examples to gain knowledge as to how suspense can be created.

During our planning myself and James Looked at the opening for seven, we attempted to copy the style of credits create suspense and enigma as to what is going to happen next.

The style of the text from seven was used in our opening 'visitors' to encage the audiunce and to try and create a feeling of mystery.

Our film opening visitors took inspiration from the Donnie Darko bathroom scene- in which donnie is talking to a large rabbit but seems confused at what he see's similarly thus co insides with our end scene of amber using Non verbal communication to convey a look of confusion expressed using facial expression.

 Donnie Darko

The penultimate inspirtation for visitors was taken from the pyscological thriller 'stragers' in which banging noises can be heard from within the house in which the film is set, similarly we used this idea and combined it with non digetic sound to create an enigma.     



The masked Charecter from the stragers was  used to help the audince question the enigma of the film.

Similarly we copied the style of the masked charecter from the 'The strangers' as it helped convey mystery as to why he is following the female charecter in 'visitors' and makes the audiunce question if he is physically real, or if he only can be seen be the female charecter as a dillusion.

 The scene in strangers in which loud non digetic sound can be heard before the appearce of the masked charecter.

The scene in visitors after the loud banging can be heard, the female charecter walks toward the source of the noise, followed by the introduction of the masked charecter.

2-Evaluation questions-How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 

Our media product represents a number of particular social groups, particularly representing females as our main character for the film. It also represents youth in general, the use of just two characters one male and one female identifies both sides of gender alongside representing general stereotypes. The male character (although has no dialogue) seems strictly dominant in our film and is obviously more in control of the scene (however being a possible hallucination), whereas, the female character is portrayed quite stereotypically vulnerable in our film – this further represents females. The fact that our character is meant to be aged between 15-17, outlines the realism of paranoia/anxiety that is not typically seen in society (especially not for a teenage girl).

3-What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Due to the psychological content of our film opening, vertigo would best suit the distributor of our media text.

A similar film distributed by vertigo is Outcast, the film synopsis is similar to our story line in “visited”,  When Mary (Kate Dickie) and her teenage son, Fergal (Niall Bruton), move to yet another new home, it soon becomes clear they are hiding from someone or something, terrified of being found, Our film “visited” has a similar story line in which a young character if suffering from delusions and is confused between thought and reality, although the audience is unaware of this until later on in the film.

 

           

Warp films would be unsuitable for distributing our film as the psychological thriller genre is not a typical genre they would produce, warp films instead produce’s more British style films. We selected vertigo as it has released a greater number of thriller films in comparison to other independent film companies.

4-Evaluation questions-Who would be the audience for your media product?

 

Our target audience for our media product is targeted towards youth in general, but particularly teen females – this is who we’d expect to watch our film as our main character is a female protagonist, and is dominant in screen time. However our film could possibly also appeal to horror/thriller fans as the construction of the film has been represented as a very dark sense for the film constructed by using dark sound, low key lighting and the use of James (male character) – all contribute towards the psychological horror/thriller essence represented in film. We gained this idea from previous films we’ve studied for example the strangers; we got the idea of James and the mask from this movie, as we thought this would fit into our psychological thriller as was certified 15, and was basically designed for a teenage audience, which was our target audience. Our use of a female protagonist was also based on silence of the lambs in which a strong female character was represented, however we thought we’d twist it to have quite a vulnerable character.

5-How did you attract/address your audience?

How did you attract/address your audience?

We tried to attract our target audience, which is predominately teenagers, by typically using two teen characters in cast, in the film the main female character is supposed to be the age of a teenager, therefore by using amber as our main character it should help more towards engaging our target audience and helps the audience identify and compare with the character on screen. As our audience is mainly teenagers, the film is more relatable to the viewer. Also with the use of James as a mysterious hooded character represented as a possible hallucinations is further use of addressing our audience;  our film is set to outline characteristics such as hallucination, paranoia and anxiety, quite uncommonly represented in the media. Therefore by including scenes like ambers non- verbal communication in response to the mysterious figure is a technique we tried/ used which we thought was key in helping to attract an audience.

6-What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product?

 Constructing our film, much was learnt through the use of technologies in our product. Specifically the main technology’s we had to come to terms with is our digital camera and the use of adobe premiere during the editing of our final piece. The camera was a bit difficult particularly to operate steadily during filming, however this was made easier throughout filming as we were helped by the use of a tripod; our main fault in the product itself I think was our framing in the camera, this was difficult to achieve during handheld shots and we feared that it could affect how professional the scenes seemed; however taking several takes of the scene helped us obtain, in my opinion a fluently filmed final product.

 The use of Adobe premiere was also a technology which I’ve become more accustomed  to during the editing stage of our final product; this was the second time I’ve used this editing programme, however, after my preliminary I still felt a bit hesitant to use it, as I thought It was quite complex and extensive. But during the editing of our final piece, the programme started to ease the more we used it.  Tools like cutting scenes became easier, and our final product became generally quite fluent, especially with the aid of our diegetic sound and use of credit titles.

7 -Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

In relation to my preliminary task, i have learnt new skills in editing, such as creating title credits that fade, similar to the opening credits from seven.
The most valuable thing i have learnt looking back at my preliminary task was that when filming it is essential to film as many shots as possible, this is because during the process of editing last minute changes can occur, sometimes for the fact that the shot that was to be used is either bad quality or cannot  be smoothly edited in to fit the existing story board.

Opening credits (Draft)

The video below is a rough draft of our opening credits sequence, The final opening credits will run more smoothly.
I plan to use this basic idea, But change the background colour to black and change the letters to a silver colour in order to contrast against the black background.

Opening title Credits

New line cinema- distributor/production Company 

Arnold Kopelson- producer

David Fincher – director

Main Cast: brad pit, Morgan freeman

Film name: Se7en

Cast: Richard Rowntree, Gwyneth Paltrow, R. Lee Ermey, John C. McGirley, Julie Araskog, Mark Boone Junior, John Cassini, Reginald E Calhey, Peter Crombie, Hawthorne, Michael Massee, Lelond Orser, Richard Partnow, Richard Schiff, Pamela Tyson.

Casting by: Billy Hopkins, Suzanne Smith, Kerri  Borden

Music by: Howard shore

Costumes designed by: Michael Kaplan

Edited by: Richard Francis-Bruce

Production designed by: Arthur Max

Director of photography: Darius Khondji

Co- Producers : Stephen Brown, Nana Greenwold, Sanford panitch.

Co- executive producers:  Lynn Harris, Richard saperstain.

Executive producers: Gianna Nunnari, Dan colsrud, Anne Kopelson,

Written by: Andrew Kevin walker

Produced by: Arnold Kopelson, Phyllis Carlyle

Directed by: David Fincher

Film Classification

Due to the genre of our film ‘third eye’ it will be classified under certificate 15. Third eye has been certified as 15 from the BBFC (British board of film classification), as there are mild elements of horror, some use of strong language, and elements of imitable behaviour included in our film.

 

 

 

The 1999 Psycological thriller 'The sixth sense' was similarly certified as a certificate 15, due to the nature of the content of the film, which included a boy suffering from disorted reality, where he can see ghosts. Throughout the film there are elements of psycological thriller, Bad language and scenes which some viewers may find upsetting, Although Bad language in our film 'third eye' is kept to a minimal we have decided to certify it as a 15 due to the psycological elements, and the abnormal behaviour portrayed by the main actor throughout.

Film distribution- Visitors

Myself and James have chosen Vertigo films for our distributing company as they are a British independent film company meaning they distribute quite a varied selection of films from psychological thrillers such as shrooms to more child friendly films such as horrid henry.  We believe that Vertigo films are more likely to accept the distribution of our film, as it is a British company and also due to the fact it is an independent film company makes it more likely for them to distribute our film rather than use a major distributor such as working title or warner bros.  We have picked vertigo films specifically over other British independent distributors for example warp films, as Vertigo seems to distribute more varied genres such as thriller/horror genre films similar to our psychological thriller ‘third eye’, we think Vertigo would be more suitable than other Independent distributors.

The Images below are film titles that vertigo have distributed, and shows the contrast in genre of films released.  James and myself want vertigo to distrubute our film as they distribute many different genres of British independant film.

    psychological  thriller 

                                                                      Humerous film distributed by vertigo, aimed at adults.

   A more child friendly film distributed by vertigo based upon the horrid henry books.

                            

Psychological thriller - Storyboard

We named our psychological thriller Third Eye 

For our psychological Thriller we've decided to focus on an idea that the main hallucinations will be of a little girl. This could prove to be better than  having hallucinations of a man, as a little girl will appeal more to our targeted female audience, as the female audiunce will be able to relate the little girl, However we do not tell the audiunce why the little girl is present in the hallucinations, we give slight implications to get the audiunce engaged and to make them think about whats actually happening within the film, but we plan to not give much away.

 

First Scene - Firstly we will start off our film with a scene in a cafe between two female characters - the main character explains her worries of her past. She claims to have been seeing random visions; and keeps refering to a specific date ( 'it was three years today.. i cant get over what happened that night') her friend comforts and supports her, they then both leave the cafe and head seperate ways.

Second Scene - Tracking of the main female character walking through the streets to her house , as shes walking through she keeps seeing her little girl and the same mysterious figure wherever she looks

Third scene - Female main character gets back to her house, she begins to panic - keeps seeing the same little girl and occasionly a mysterious hooded man. She then runs up stairs and goes into her room slamming the door as she enters.

Fourth scene - She puts her back to the door and sighs in relief, then she sees a flash vision of the man at the window, she rushes towards the indow and draws the curtains. After she walks to her bed, she sits in bed contemplating, then finally after a while passes out.

Fifth Scene - This will be our last full scene, and will be portrayed as a dream, with quick shots of her previous hallucinations will be used aswell as a couple of new ones. suddenly it will refer back to the main character suddenly awakens.
End Credits

Casting

Main charecter:Kirsty brown

Little girl:TBA

Creepy hallucination:Darius Edwards

Friend from the cafe: potentialy Mel.. TBA

Directors: Harry Gulliver & James Roberts

Camera/shooting: Harry Gulliver & James roberts

Extras: TBA