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

I think that the sound in my prelim task wasn’t very good; the music was really loud at the beginning and the white sound from the children at the beginning makes it sound crackly and unprofessional. The sound in my final product is a lot better, the volume isn’t really loud and when dialogue is used it sounds a lot better.

The editing is a lot better in my thriller opening, I’ve used special effects to make the transitions from shots seem much smoother and more professional than in my prelim where for example the titles at the beginning could be smoothed into the live shots a lot better. by basically gaining experience and knowledge about final cut this helped us a lot with editing the main film.

The camerawork it definitely better in the thriller opening, in the prelim some is jolty and looks really unprofessional, in the thriller opening it’s a lot smoother because we developed our skills on holding the camera and looking over what the shot looks like after shooting them to see if they need to be re shot.

The main is a lot better than the prelim, it looks a lot more professional, and I think that this is because we now know our strengths within the group. I think that Melissa is really good at the camera work and shots, Saskia is good at the creative side- costumes, plots and I think that my strengths lie with the editing and sound. By knowing what we are good at in the thriller opening project we found we worked together a lot better rather than all of us crowded around the mac trying to do the same task resulting in us wasting time.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Before starting Media Studies AS I hadn’t even used a Mac before. I didn’t really know what was involved in the process of making a film, and how much planning had to take place.

Learning how to make a storyboard



I found this very interesting; there is so much detail you have to consider for example shots, transitions from each shot, dialogue, and length of shot. However I have learnt the importance of having to use storyboarding because it makes it very quick to know what shots to shoot in which order, and when editing it helps because you can see how everything goes in order. It also helped to turn ours into an animatic so we knew how long it would be and how it would look.
Here I am making the storyboard:

Using the camera and equipment
Again I hadn’t used a camera properly before media studies and I feel as though I have learnt a lot about shot types, using the tripod to create professional looking shots. I have also learnt about continuity and 180 degree rule and the importance of getting the right shot! I have also learnt about capturing the film onto the Mac.



Final Cut




Editing the film was my favourite part, it was completely new to me and I feel that I have learnt a lot! I have learnt about fitting all the shots together and special effects like the transitions in the film opening. I have learnt how to look for a cut or edit that doesn’t look right and pay attention to detail. I’ve also learnt how to export it as a movie too.

Soundtrack pro



On soundtrack pro I learnt about ‘white noise’ or atmosphere noise, because in our film there were a lot of silent parts this was a huge problem but we combated this by basically turning down the sound! I also learnt about special effect sounds and how it can change the how perspective of a film. I also learnt about how by finding the right music can change the feeling of a film completely.


Online



It’s not just the Mac and cameras that I have learnt to use, but blogger as well, I’ve learnt about how to upload posts, images, imbed YouTube clips. Another website I have learnt to use was having a YouTube account and uploading on there which I’ve never done before.

How did you attract/ address your audience?

When researching a potential audience, I asked the question ‘what plot in a thriller most attracts you?’ after getting answers from this it helped develop a film opening and a plot that we knew was attractive to an audience. Also by getting an audience feedback on our rough cut, from people we were trying to attract our film to we knew if we were on the right track or if it didn’t attract them at all.

The Victim



The audience we are trying to attract are teenagers, so by using a young victim who is also a teenager the audience can relate to her and empathise, therefore attracting them.

Woman murderer



The challenged convention of using a blonde female killer would attract our audience because not only is it unusual but it would attract the female audience who may be able to relate to her and the male audience who are intrigued by someone who goes against the stereotypical ‘males are more powerful than women’.

Kidnapping plot





When we did conduct the questionnaire, kidnapping was a clear favourite in terms of plot preference. So when deciding shots to use we remembered the one we liked from taken. By having the shot of Imogene’s hands tied up at the beginning the audience we are trying to attract realise what is going on, intriguing them to keep on watching to see what happens next.

Who would the audience be for your media product?

This is the typical audience:

TIna:

She is 17 and lives in Birmingham. She attends the local sixth form. Her favourite films are The Sixth Sense, Hide and Seek and the Saw films. Her favourite type of music is either pop/indie. She gets her clothes from shops like New Look and Topshop and at weekends she goes to parties or has friends around her house. Films that her and her friends have seen at the cinemas this year are Paranormal Activity, Frozen and Shutter Island. Her favourite programmes are the soaps, X-factor, and skins- anything with a bit of drama in it. She has a part- time job which gives her quite a bit of money a week.

The certification that was decided for The Bloody Copycat was 15, so obviously the audience will be over that age.
When in my research and planning I was trying to find out the audience interested in our film I sent some friends and family a questionnaire, the ones that I found were in interested in the thriller genre and the films similar to ours were males, usually 16 +.

I think that Tina would be attracted to our film because the films she has seen at the cinema previously are similar to ours. Also most cinema goers are aged between 16- 24 so she fits into this age range. Because she has a part time job this means that she can afford to pay to go to the cinemas. Also she is form the same age range, occupation and gender to the victim in the film, meaning that she is more likely to relate to her.

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

Firstly I thought about what films my opening film is similar to. Films that I have compared to my film a lot are:
- Monster 2003
- Saw II
- Sixth sense

I then decided to research their distribution company, who owns them, how they were distributed and their budgets.

Monster 2003



Distribution Company: Media 8
Some other films distributed by Media 8:
- Reaper 2008
- Challenger 2008
- Buried Alive 2007
- Man about town 2006

Many of the films aren’t exactly blockbusters, and some I found difficult to even find on YouTube, this highlights to me that maybe their distribution techniques aren’t as effective as other major companies or they don’t have the budget. However almost 75% of their films were a thriller which shows that they have a particular type of film they like to distribute, I think that this distribution company would like our film because it’s the same genre as other films they have distributed.


Saw II

Saw 2 was worldwide; therefore many distribution companies were used for different countries for effective distribution. I’m going to focus on the main one which is Lions gate films. Lions gate distribute mainstream films which usually end up being blockbusters, they also release a range of films from comedy’s to horrors. Examples of other films they have distributed are:

- Kick Ass 2010
- Precious
- New in Town

A lot of films that Lions Gate have distributed have been very successful but a lot aren’t British, so if they were to distribute our film in the way the American films have been distributed I don’t think that ours would be very successful, however they are very successful and the budgets for distribution would be relatively high so they may be able to reach the audience that likes our film or even distribute it more in the UK.



The sixth sense
The distribution company used for this film was Buena Vista International for the USA and UK which is owned by Walt Disney. This company distributes a range of films, from animations to horror. Majority of the films that they distribute are mainstream films that end up being blockbusters. A lot being American which are successful both here in the UK and the US.




I think that an American distribution company would choose to distribute our film; it is very similar to other thriller’s like Monster and The Sixth Sense that companies like Lion gate and Walt Disney distribute, however I think that a problem may be that it could come across too British for an American audience. It could however be distributed around Europe, resulting in large audience consumption which would result in a large profit. I think that merchandising would be a problem, not a lot of thrillers use merchandise except from maybe soundtracks and special edition DVDs.

How does you media product represent particular social groups?

The character that I have decided to focus on is Kerri. Our original idea was to create a character that would look like the typical innocent suspect by appearance but really was the criminal. By doing this we wanted to use a white, middle class, female, with blonde hair. We thought this would be really effective and would add a twist to the film and not being a typical thriller killer. Overall I think that Kerri represents gender, age, and social class.

Gender, social class and appearance:



I have decided to compare Kerri played by Sarah to the main character in Monster played by Charlize Theron. Both characters have similarities, both are blonde and have fair skin colour, they are also both the serial killers in their films. However they both have their differences, Kerri is very feminine wearing high heels and jewellery whereas compared to the killer in Monster she is very scruffy, wearing quite male/ unisex clothing, and not very clean looking, not only does this relate to appearance but social class, it’s obvious from the film monster that she is form a very low social class, working as a prostitute and living with a friend, her scruffy appearance exaggerates this, whereas Kerri is well dressed, with nice hair showing she is from a higher status. Also there types of victims are very different; Kerri’s are young females whereas the main character in Monster’s is males who she gets her revenge on- typical when using a female killer. The basis of our film is also very different from that of monster, ours is pure fiction, whereas Monster is based on the true story of Aileen Wuornos.


Age, appearance, personality and gender:



Another character who I think Kerri would be a good comparison to is Amanda from the Saw movies. Like Kerri she is quite feminine and wears a lot of red which is symbolic of blood and death. In terms of hair colour etc they physically appear different but both characters are the same age range and their personalities are similar, Amanda is copying the techniques of killing of another character called Jigsaw, and Kerri in our film is influenced by other serial killers. However their social classes are very different, Kerri is middle class, well dressed and educated whereas Amanda has a troubled background with drug abuse suggesting a low social status.

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

My media product is a short film opening and the chosen genre is a thriller. When making the film opening we had to consider many elements to make it look professional and realistic to the chosen genre. Many of the standard forms and conventions I used, but I also challenged some to make it appeal more interesting and different to the standard, typical thriller.


Title of the film
We decided to name our film The Bloody Copycat. The main plot of the film is a female killer who is obsessed with other killers, murders and crime, hence the ‘copycat’ because this would be her inspiration and where she would get her ideas from.
Bloody as a denotation can mean:
-of, like, or containing blood
-covered or stained with blood; bleeding
-involving bloodshed; with much killing or wounding
-bloodthirsty; cruel
-having the red colour of blood
All of these meanings really relate to thrillers, for example killings and violence, blood, cruelty- they all suggest a thriller.
We thought that this really suited the whole idea of the film; it fits in with the plot, the character and most importantly the genre and conventions of a thriller.

Title font and style
The title in our film incorporate our consistent theme, relates to the meaning of the films name and fits in with the thriller genre. The titles used in our film are red with a dripping blood effect; we decided to find some titles like this of the internet as the Mac’s at school didn’t have any with the effect we wanted.





A film that uses a similar title font and style is Saw 2. By using these types of titles we set the film up as a thriller and the blood foreshadows death and violence. The use of red is also effective because it’s a typical genre convention and the background it is on it dull colours and the red stand’s out catching the audience’s attention.



Another film that is similar to the bloody copycats titles is Dawn of the dead:



Location

The location for the opening film is a small room and where it’s exact location is set is a mystery to the audience. This therefore creates a sense of suspicion to the audience. This is a very typical convention of the thriller genre. Because the room is very small and compact and the use of close ups generate a sense of claustrophobia and anxiety which is exactly how a thriller should make the audience feel. Another film where the use of close ups and small spaces is used is in the Panic Room. As the title of the film suggests some scenes are set in a small panic room and the use of close up’s and small spaces inevitably creates a fear of panic and anxiety.



Challenged convention

When deciding the characters we thought that this would be the best area to challenge a convention. We decided to use a female killer. Normally in a thriller a typical convention is to use a male antagonist who shows there power through murdering the less powerful people. Our female killer also kills a young female which is an unusual convention is a thriller because on the rare occasion a female killer is used they are normally the feminist types getting their revenge on men. An example of a female killer in another film is monster.



Sound

The use of sound in our film is very representative of the thriller genre. It’s slow and almost from the start it highlights the thriller genre. Throughout the opening film we have music the whole way through which creates the right sense of atmosphere and fits in with the transitions of each shot in the opening. A similar film that use’s sound to create the effect of the genre and is similar to our thriller opening is sixth sense:



Costumes and props

A way to incorporate our consistent theme into our film was to use characters costumes. For Kerri she was going to wear a lot of red and black, red being symbolic of blood and black being mourning, bereavement and death. We then wanted to make Imogene’s costume opposite to Imogene’s so we decided she would wear white. This resulted in binary opposition, common in thrillers.



An example of the victim in a thriller wearing white and the killer wearing red/ black is in saw 4 when ‘Amanda’ is the female killer, we wanted Kerri to come across a lot like Amanda from the Saw films.



A prop used was the scrapbook of the victims that Kerri murdered, once again red is used to incorporate the theme of red and it is a typical thriller convention. The knife is also a very important prop; it indicates after the white transition that Imogene is dead without having to actually see the body.



Camera work and editing

At the beginning of our film one of the first shots is of the ‘Imogene’s’ hands tied up this suggests to the audience immediately that the plot is based on kidnapping, which is uncommon in thrillers to give away a plot straight away. An example of a film that uses a similar shot of the tied up hands is in Taken.



In our film:



In the opening we made the decision to use a lot of close up shots. This is so we could make the room feel even smaller and create a sense of anticipation and anxiety.
We decided the tilt/ point of view shot of Kerri was really effective because it puts the audience in Imogene’s position and also creates a sense of intimidation and fear- common in the thriller genre.


Characters

Kerri is the antagonist in our opening. We wanted to portray her as very feminine by using the high heel shoes and jewellery. Also from researching Alfred Hitchcock I found out that he used a lot of blonde characters as it is less suspicious than using brunettes who are typically used in the thriller genre. So when finding someone to play Kerri we opted for a blonde. An example from another film that uses a blonde killer is The Hand That Rocks The Cradle 1992.



Special FX

There aren’t a lot of special effects in our film because it is very uncommon to use them in the thriller genre, for example Sci-fi’s are more likely to use them. Some effects we did use were the transitions from each picture from the start of the film to the live images and the dissolve on the titles; we used these so that we could create a seemingly smooth atmosphere to lead the audience into a false sense of security. It also makes the opening film look a lot more professional.

Final Film

Audience Feedback

In one of our media lessons we had the class watch our rough cut.
Overall they felt the film was really good, but like all rough cuts it had its problems, despite this the class overall gave it a level 3.

Some of the problems that the class noticed:
- Our title music was too loud
- Our titles music should be looked at again, as they felt it didn't quite fit in with the movie
- Our titles were plain and boring and looked very simple, it was suggested to use bloody titles to fit in with our consistent theme and the name of the film
- One of our actors that plays Kerri moves her eyes during the point of view shot which to our audience suggested bad editing
- After the point of view shot it was suggest to put in a noise on the fade to make it obvious that Imogene had been killed.
- Whilst the actors are talking there is too much "white noise" which really makes the film look like bad quality
- When the book is being used there is once again too much "white noise"
- It was suggested to remove the end titles because it made it look like the end of a film when actually its just the opening

The changes we are going to make are:
- New titles
- Remove the atmosphere noise
- Re-edit Kerri's eye movement
- change the title music
- add a noise after Imogene's murder
- Remove the end titles
- Add an Ident at the beginning of the film
- Turn down the volume on the music and dialogue

Rough Cut

This is our rough cut. After finishing this we had the class watch it and give us audience feedback.


Changes we had to make was instead of using a tracking shot on our titles using the newspaper clippings we changed it to pictures of the wall fading into each other. The quality of the shot was poor, and we worried that it would give of a bad impression of the film. The wall the clippings were on was too short, therefore a tracking shot would be the wrong type to use.

Preliminary Task

Before starting our main project we had to do a preliminary task. Watching it now our group feels we have learned a lot after making and editing the prelim and doing the research and planning
This is ours:

Shooting Schedule

This is the shooting schedule, this will tell us and the actors, where and when to be, what we need for the particular scene. It will therefore make us more organised.

Challenged Conventions

In our film wanted to challenge a convention. Some possible ideas we had were:
-filming in daylight
-using a female murderer
-cheerful music instead of tense
- the victim to be a man

The convention that we have decided to challenge is we are going to use a woman instead of a male as the killer.
I think that this is going to work really well in our film, especially the way we are going to use the shot of the heels and the female victim as its unusual for a female killer to kill another female, its usually a "feminist" type female getting her revenge on males, like in the film Monster.

The animatic

This is our animatic, the reason we did this was so that we know how long our film is, so that we don't run over time and have an idea how our film flows.



The music we have used in the titles creates quite a dramatic feel to the audience and the music used throughout the film crates a sense of suspense and tension which almost foreshadows something bad is going to happen. We also thought the music made us feel quite emotional watching it, as it gives away that a murder will happen.

Consistent theme in our film

I suggested in the group that we should have a consistent theme in out film, I got this idea after doing some research on Alfred Hitchcock, we decided that we would use the theme red, as red is symbolic of blood and murder.
The way I suggested that we incorporated red into our film was:
- the murderer wears red heels.
- the victim has a red belt on
- the book we use has a red cover
- the blood will be red
- our font on our titles will be red

Also some other idea's I got from researching Alfred Hitchcock was to use a blonde woman as the killer, because as he said, more suspicion is created using a brunette rather that the "innocent" blonde.

Another idea I got from Alfred Hitchcock was is to try and get a sense of suspense into the film, by having our killer walk around the table and look at the book, the audience are waiting for her to approach the victim.

our characters names

To decide our characters names we decided to do some research. For our murderers name we looked for baby names that meant, dark, mysterious. We came across Kerri which is an Irish name meaning dark.
We then researched our victims name, which means innocent, Imogene

Prop list and Set design

By using the prop list we will be a lot more organised when aranging the shoot, we will have a specific list of what we will need and where from.



by using a set list we know exactly what we want the shoot to look like making it a lot more easier to get it done and more organised

Costumes

In our film, our main character- Kerri is a woman serial killer, to get costume ideas I decided to look at other films who the main character is a woman murderer.
In the film monster 2003, Charlize Theron plays the serial killer aileen wuornos, I watched the film clips on You tube of the film and noted down some of the costumes that she wore.





From the clips I've watched the main character wears normal, everyday clothes, however she does come across very scruffy.

Also from clips and movies I've previously seen I have noticed the main killer either man or woman wears dark clothes, this is so that the killer gives the audience a mysterious and suspicious feel.

From this we have decided that to give the killer (Kerri) a mysterious and dark feel we wanted to dress her in dark clothing, but to incorporate our theme we wanted to give her red/pink heels with a red necklace which the colour red is symbolic of blood and danger. Some clothing we would use for Kerri is:






For the other character that will be in our film- the victim. We wanted to use clothing that will give a feeling that the victim is innocent. So to find clothing that portrays this feel we looked at some thrillers.
I noted down what some of the victims looked like:
- they wore simplistic clothing
- white was very common- symbolic of innocence

This is some of the clothes we want the victim to wear:



Costume list:

Location

For our location we wanted simple empty room with a table and a chair, because we decided to film in school to make it easier we looked at classrooms and year areas

.


We decided that these places were unsuitable because in picture one the room was very dark with little natural light which would look really bad on the camera. In picture two it was a very unsuitable because there is constantly people walking through which would risk continuity errors and also it doesn't give the kind of atmosphere we wanted.

Our location:





This room that we found the house at our school was perfect, it had the table, the chair, it was away from interruptions meaning we were less likely to have continuity errors and we were allowed to use it!
This room also gave the feel we wanted from the film, it was very claustrophobic which is the way we wanted the audience to feel.
It feels quite isolated, by only using just the room and no other scenes in other locations, the opening will give the audience a feel as though there is no possible way out.

Storyboard

After making the script we then made the storyboard to decide the shots we would use and the way we wanted it to be set out, we made the StoryBoard Quick 5, which has enabled us to make the storyboard professional and also very simple to make.

Shot one:



Part two of shot one:



- CU- this shot we want to use a close up and also use a tracking shot of the wall. The close up will show the specific newspaper articles of the murders that the killers committed

Shot 2:



- CU: the close up will focus on Imogene's hands tied up, the close up will show the struggle on the hands. We got the idea for this shot from the film Taken

Shot 3:







- MS: Panning shot will show the feet of Kerri walking around the table, this is the point that the audience will realise its a woman that's the killer so using a medium shot will also focus on the heels the killer is wearing.

Shot 4:



- MLS: the medium long shot of Kerri's feet will link the next shot of the book, it will focus on the feet/legs and will show that she's stopped linking to when she looks at the book.

shot 5:



-CU: the close up of the scrapbook will focus the audience on the photos of the girls she has murdered.



- close up of Kerri slowly flicking through the book showing the girl's shes previously murdered, focusing the audience on the photos



- CU: close up of the page where Imogene's name is,the close up will concentrate the audiences attention of the name and the previous photo of Imogene, giving a sense of shock.

Shot 6







- MLS/CU:medium long shot to a close up of Kerri's feet walking round to Imogene,this shot will give the audience a sense of anxiety of the murder getting closer to Imogene

Shot 7:



- CU: close up of Kerri taking off Imogene's blindfold this will concentrate on the emotions on Imogene's face, creating a sense of fear for Imogene

Shot 8:



-POV/CU: Point of view shot from Imogene's perspective to Kerri, this will give the audience the perspective of what Imogene can see, the close up will show the killers face almost making the audience feel as thought they are in Imogene's position.

There will then be a FLASH which will then cut to the next shot.

Shot 9:



- CU: another close up of the book where Kerri will stick in the photo of Imogene and will place a blooded knife on the table once again focusing the audience on the particulars such as the book, photos and knife, It will also be an over the shoulder shot.



- CU: Kerri will then turn the page to another photo of a young girl before she dies, the close up will also focus the attention on the photo

In our storyboard we took on the idea of using a lot of close up shots we decided to do this so that we create a claustrophobic atmosphere and also using close ups of faces we can emphasise their emotions like Imogene's to show how scared she is.




The next stage of the pre-production process is to research appropriate locations that fit in with our genre conventions and are appropriate for our plot.