Thursday, 24 October 2013

Target Audience Results-Miss Miller


Target Audience Results

The research that we carried out was for finding out what different people of different ages would like in a thriller film.Then what age we are targeting for we can see what they want and incorporate it into our own clip.Also we can target what specific age certificate to use to try to appeal to the biggest audience and what they want.


1.
Graph one shows how many males and females we asked our questions to.We can see how we asked more females in our questionnaire.This may have changed the results as thriller films are targeted toward males and may have things that male's find more interesting. This is one of the things could distort our questionnaires answers.

2.
Graph two shows the ages that we asked in our questionnaire. We can see that we asked many more older people than younger as thriller films are targeted more toward older people.This can be seen in the way that not many thrillers are rated below 15 and often have gore, violence and scares that would be unsuitable for children.This could help our clip in that we will raise the certificate of the clip to make it more entertaining for people.

3.
In graph 3 , 1 is certificate 12, 2 is certificate 15 and 3 is certificate 18. In this graph we can see how people prefer older age rating with 40% going to 18.We now know that we should definitely target our clip towards older people and not to a younger audience audience.This means that we should include things that are suitable

4.
This graph is one of the most important over.It ask's what interest's you in thriller films and this is the one we paid most attention to as it indicates what people want.The highest was murder with 32% which was expected and would indefinitely be in our clip.The next is  mystery with 23% which again is is in our clip as expected.All things that were highly demanded in our pie graph will be in our clip.These segments also again show how adult certificates should be used.

5.

What this graph shows is what they have already seen but will be expecting to see in this clip.This is what other films have shown and now that is what they expect to see.We could either stick to  what people expect or change it and take a unique view on the thriller genre.The only thing that will be certainly in it will be the suspense

6.
This graph is irrelevant to our clip.

7.
Graph 7 shows what sound people would like to hear in a thriller film.We would put these in our clip as it would be exactly what we would need in our clip.Screams and all the other types of sound will be in the clip to show variety.This will make it a better experience for the audience and help a range of people enjoy it.

8:
Graph 8 shows what type of characters people would expect in a films such as a hero,villain and villain.As it is a short clip we will only be using a victim and a villain but that will be all that is necessary for our short clip we are filming.

9:
This graph shows what type of actors people would like to see in a thriller clip. Surprisingly unknown actors came out on top at 45% wheres well known actors only had 37%.This is irrelevant for our clip.

10.  This graph shows what setting people would like to see. Unsurprisingly a forest came out on top with 40%, the next was a house at 35%.This clearly shows that we should do it in one of these places as this is what people have said.If we were to ignore this then we would make a less successful clip.

11: This is not relevant to our clip.

12:
This is important as we now know how complicate to make our narrative. Now that we know people prefer complicated narratives we could put this into our own clip to make it appeal to more people.This would appeal to a larger audience.

Overall there are many things that we can take from our questionnaire that could be useful in our own clip in the thriller genre.


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Sunday, 20 October 2013

The opening scene of Halloween- Miss Georgiou

How does the opening sequence of Halloween inform the audience of the conventions of a thriller film?

The opening scene of Halloween includes many conventions that are typical in any thriller film.These things include things such as hiding the killers identity,low key lighting, suspenseful sounds, death and a victim.All of these are in numerous thriller films.
Hiding the killers identity is in many thriller films and is typical in creating suspense. In Halloween we do not know who the murder is until the camera zooms out when we find it is a small boy who has actually murdered the girl.This makes the scene quite disturbing as we realize now he has murdered his sister and the hidden identity was building up the tension and the murderer seems much more inhuman and unnatural compared to if we knew who it was from the start.This makes the audience continue watching as now they want to find out the killers identity.Hiding a killers identity makes the audience feel quite cold towards the characters as they cannot see a face.  This informs the audience that it is a convention as the whole scene was building up to it and makes it obvious

Low key lighting is when only one main source of light is seen.It is present in many thriller films and in Halloween it has constant low key lighting from when the boy is outside to where the boy is walking up the stairs.Most of the time the source of light is the moon when the lights go out and when outside a bedroom light .This keeps the audience on edge constantly and makes the scene feel more dark and that something will happen in the house also they can tell that something bad will happen.This also informs the audience of it being a convention as it is very common in films and it is used throughout this scene.

Suspenseful sound is a sound that can keep an audience on edge but not ruin the tension.This is played all the way through the clip but especially at 0.41 where it increases dramatically. The sound keeps the audience entertained and helps them understand the film is building up to something big happening in the following scene.This is in nearly all films as it is just a key role in helping the audience understand a scene this is why it is a convention in thriller films.The audience can tell that now something will happen just from the music but the director can use this to mislead the audience.

A victim is a vulnerable person in a film who is normally in danger.In Halloween the victim is the boys sister who is stabbed to death by her brother in her bedroom.This is conventional to thriller films as normally there is a vulnerable person who gets hurt which helps develop the emotions towards characters and exposes the murderer. This helps an audience relate emotionally with that character and keeps them watching the film as they want to see the antagonist face justice.This is a convention as it is very common in thriller films to have a vulnerable person who something happens to as it helps move the film along.

Death is also very prominent in almost all thriller films.Halloween has a death of the girl who was murdered by her brother and happens after the suspense has been built up until the point. This is in thriller films as it keeps the audience interested in what the outcome will be for either the people who know the person or the murderer. This is often the start of many thriller films.It is a convention as nearly all thriller films have a death and it keeps the audience wanting to know what will happen next.This makes the audience feel something for the person who has died  and creates emotion towards that person.

Overall many convention can be picked up on in Halloween and as it is a thriller many of these can be seen in other thriller films.This also helps the audience with convention as if they have seen other thriller films they can relate back to this one.

This analysis will help me with my clip as now I can use some of the themes in my own clip.Also I know these make a successful scene so will likely use them as they have been proven wheres if I used unknown ones they may not of been suitable for a thriller.


Friday, 18 October 2013

Group narrative - Miss Georgiou

         Group Narrative

What is the purpose of the narrative:
The narrative is to construct a story and help make sense of the plot of a film in a chronological order ; this  helps engage the audience to make it more enjoyable and build a relationship with the characters and help promote a theme.

How did our group discuss it:

 We discussed our ideas in quite thorough detail  with our group and what our ideas about what a thriller should contain.Things such as suspense, a victim and a murderer were automatically picked but other things that were surprising were not.We found out we wanted a masked murderer and other things we also talked about advantages and disadvantages. Overall we discussed well as a group and shared ideas and opinions well.

Group member 1: 
Group member one had an idea of it being situated in a hospital with the victim being a patient waking up after a coma. The murderer is a doctor and is chasing the woman through the hospital until she is dies due to her being away from her life support machine. The man then operates on her and does experiments on her. The doctor has a mask on so we never know his identity and never runs as he is relentless.

Group member 2 :  




Wai-Lum - A man (tom) gets married to a single mother (Elizabeth).  The mother and the daughter (Katy), move in with Tom.  For years they live happily.  One day katie comes home crying from school, she talks to her dad and says that her best friend is going out with the guy she likes.  Tom treats Katy like his own daughter and this is the first time he has witnessed her being devasted.  He wants to solve the situation but he is thinking of a plan, he invites katy's friend over and it didnt go as he predicted as he wanted to talk to her friend calmly where he got flashing images of katy of being sad 
which makes him aggressive.  Tom lies to Katy's friend who is clueless about katy's anger.  Whilst her back is turned he grabs a vase and he smashes it on the back of her head.  She loses consciousness, and takes her to a hidden basement which his family does not know about, he puts the body in there, realises what he has done and becomes mentally unstable.  He continuously starts stabbing her as he is frighted that the victim will start telling everyone.  The police find out the girl is missing and go search houses and the guard dog smells the scent and gets arresting.

Group member 3:
1) In her narrative teen girls have been reported missing.  A past female victim comes home one night from a party, however she has been drinking and is tipsy, but she is aware of her surroundings - whilst she walks, on the way she is unknowingly followed by a mass killer. She then eventually arrives home, whilst she enters her house she clumsily leaves her door open which becomes an easy access for the killer. The killer however doesn't kill her but he stalks her inside her own house. For months she carries on her normal life, he lives in her house in hiding. 
Vladimir Propp:

Vladimir Propp had the idea and held the theory  that the the characters made up the narrative of a film and were the most important part in building it.He thought that the characters told the story and people such as the donor ,the dispatcher and the false hero just add to the depth of the narrative. These characters are not always present in thriller films but are mostly in fairy films such as Shrek but are not normally in all films.

Todorov: 
Tzvetan Todorov preferred a simplified version of a narrative in a film.This although more simplified  allowed more complex ideas about narrative to be thought.He believed that first it started with an equilibrium in which all things were balanced and good. Then a disruption occurs which changes the balance of the narative and this needs to be repaired by someone who can be thought of as the hero.Then a new balance has taken place ans the narrative ends.This does happen in many films but often has a change at the end.

Aristotle

Aristotle believed that a narrative was built up and helped by themes.This made the narrative more in depth and helped us understand the narrative better.Themes he thought that could help a narrative are goals,antagonist/protagonist and resolutions.These would help make a narrative more interesting and help  engage the audience better.





Monday, 14 October 2013

Research into Sound in Thrillers- Miss Miller

Unbreakable

Sound is a very important element in all films but especially thrillers.Sound helps to create a sense of what the film will be about and help shape the mood of the scene, for example with a action scene fast paced music would be appropriate. It can also help to create suspense which is essential for a thriller film and this shows how it is different for each film.

Diegetic sound is sound that we can see the source of in the scene.An example of this is at 0.18 when rain is splattering on the flour and we can hear and see it on camera.This sound makes the scene immediately feel cold and dark and tells us about the scene without even seeing the images. This diegetic sound also manipulate the audience into believing that the following scene will be violent or have negative aspects.This keeps the audiences attention and helps the film to become more engaging for the audience who now want to know what will happen.

Music in the background of a scene is non-digetic as you cannot see where its coming from.When this happens in the scene it is at 1.20 and it has music that is suitable for a slow violent scene.This music makes the death feel important and that it is not necessarily a bad thing even though we do not know why.This makes the audience feel quite unsympathetic with the man and helps to not make the scene quite a offensive. This makes the scene more questionable as now the audience want to continue watching due to how the murder was carried out. 

Parallel sounds are sounds that go along with what is happening on the screen.An example of this is the noise the man who is being strangled.When this happens we can feel his pain and need to breath but we know that he will eventually die.This makes the death feel more real and make it seem more painful for the man.This keeps the audience entertained and makes them concentrate on what is going on in the scene and feel for the man who is being murdered.This happens at the time of 1.20.

When the woman falls to the floor we hear a thud, this is diegectic as it shows the sound on the screen at 2.06. When she falls to the floor we know she is in pain and has been there for a long time she does not wake as we can tell by the silence after.This creates sympathy for the woman as we know she has not been treated well.This makes the audience want to continue watching as now we want to know what will happen to her a we have an emotional connection.

Overall sound is a very important part of any film and can make or break a film completely. This is seen if you see a scene with no music the elements of the film are not there and the film seems dead to the viewer.This is how critical they are to making a good thriller film.


Sunday, 13 October 2013

Research into the history of a thriller film- Introduction Miss Georgiou

       Research into  the history of a thriller film


Thriller films have been around since the start of cinema and have been thrilling and creating suspense for audiences ever since. This includes a wide range of films such as Vertigo by Hitchcock to modern thriller films such as Taken and The Bourne Ultimatum.


1950's :

The thriller films of the 1950's were overall quite basic and very mild compared to today's advanced thrillers.A film such as The Night of the Hunter by Charles Laughton was in black and white and had no special effects.Also violence and blood was non existent in the clip although the plot has murder in it which in modern films would be graphic and gory. Most thriller films made in the 1950 would be rated U or PG as they were excessive for the time but now would be considered weak or boring this emphasizes the difference between then and now.The audiences of the time were quite sheltered in cinema from what could have been.Other example of 1950's films are Bad Day at Black Rock,The Killing and Jack the Ripper.This decade of film shows how thrillers do not need lots of special effects to keep suspense up and can tell a story without graphic images.The narrative of these films were quite straight forward with little deviation from the main thing in the film.This compared to later films which can be quite confusing and have an ending that does not explain everything is quite different from modern film.This type of narative can be seen in the limited themes used and straight forward characters.  
1960's:
1960's films were starting to increase the profile of the thriller film with big names starting to help such as Alfred Hitchcock, Jesus Franco and Stanley Doden. Arguably the biggest film was Hitchcock's Psycho which was highly regarded and praised even today. Films were now becoming more daring and exciting with violence and nudity becoming more accepted but still not very graphic compared to today.In one scene in Psycho a woman is having a shower which would have not been accepted before. Then a man with a knife comes in and starts stabbing her. In the end we see blood going down the drain which again would be unthinkable ten years before.This shows how themes were becoming more accepted in cinema and boundaries were starting to go.Audiences from now on were becoming more lenient with what they watched. Others films from the 1960's were Five Minutes to Live,Maniac and Z.This decade of films shows how themes and narratives are changing in acceptability but still do not deviate too much from the previous decade.They are still quite toned down in the ways things are portrayed.

1970:
Thriller films were now becoming more advanced visually and now were expressing violence in a more visual way. Also nudity is becoming more acceptable. A big film that was released in the seventies was Jaws which is about a shark terrorizing a island.Many parts in the film have large amounts of blood and there are scenes with mutilated body parts. This is a massive difference from 20 years earlier when blood was not allowed, so we can now see how over time the audience viewing tastes have become de-sensitised to graphic images.Other examples of films of the seventies are The Driver,Black Sunday and Armageddon.This decade shows how audience taste ha now changed completely from before.Narratives are now changing more than ever before there are unexpected things happening in the plot and characters are not as straightforward as before in cinema.Things are becoming more complicate overall in many ways.

1980:
The eighties brought thriller films that were mainly focused on action and violence and were pushing the boundaries on what could be seen on screen. These films include big blockbuster such as Die Hard,Rambo,Shoot to Kill and The Untouchables. All these films have many deaths and constant violence throughout. This is a continuation of the violence that audiences wanted in the previous decade but taken to more of an extreme.Violence is now totally acceptable. Most of these films still do not make use of special effects as it does not fit in with the genre as thriller is generally realistic.This again shows how audiences have changed what they would like to view.

1990's:
The 90's were a new time for thriller films with special effects and CGI at the disposal it made films that could not be done ever before.Films such as The Sixth Sense, Hard Rain and Payback with a more detailed plot line can show how there has been a shift in taste away from pure violence.Many new things could now be done with films that could not be done before so films could become more in depth and have a much more real feel to them.This decade shows how a change in technology can change what films people go and see and the films content.Now the narrative's are much more complicated with things that we could not have even guessed such as the end of The Sixth Sense.Films can have many more twist and turns which have not been seen in cinema before.

Overall thriller films have changed drastically in a very short amount of time. They have gone from very conservative films to extremely violent ones only ten years later. This shows how not only films have changed but also viewing tastes.This will assist me in that I can see how successful thriller over time have worked on themes and then put them into my clip.Then I will have a good range of themes rather than them being all the same with the same outcome. Also I can now see how thriller have changed and to make it as modern as possible which will make it better for the current time.

I can now apply this to my clip as now I can see what has worked at different times throughout cinema.I can incorporate a small part of some genres and put them together as now I know what things make a successful thriller film at different times and what is suitable for my type of thriller film.These mixes could come from any genre as they all have something that could be used.

Top 10 Thriller Films

1.Hannibal    Box Office $165,092,268
2. The Silence of the Lambs  Orion  Box Office $130,742,9222
3.Basic Instinct  Box Office  $ 117,727,224
4. Se7en  $100,125,643
5.Red Dragon $93,149,898
6. Saw II $87,039,965
7. Saw III  $80,238,724
8. The Bone Collector $66,518,655
9. Saw IV $63,300,095
10. The Cell  $61,334,059

The themes of these top grossing films are mainly adult and show lots of blood and gore. This can be seen especially in the Saw franchise and The silence of the Lambs which are very violent, this is why we have decided to make our film more violent and for an older audience than before. The characters in the films are also generally split into two with psychopaths and murderers or vulnerable victims.Examples of these in the films are Hannibal Lecter a cannibalistic psychopath and Tracy in Se7en a blond vulnerable victim. This is why we have only stuck to two characters as otherwise it would over complicate the relatively short scene.

The narrative of these famous films also are not straight forward with the killer getting away until the end; films such as Se7en which does not show who the killer is until a long time into the film.Other films show the narrative from the another perspective such as Red Dragon and we know what the villain has done and who he is.Finally the Target audience for these film are strictly adult and have strong violence and language and we have also gone down this path for our scene.Overall these films have clearly influenced our scene in many ways.

Tuesday, 8 October 2013

Conventions in a thriller film- Miss Miller

Taken

A convention is a way in which something is usually done or something that fits into a particular category. A thriller films primary objective is to create suspense and excitement at various points in the film. There are many ways that thriller films convey emotion and meaning and this is through the convention that can be used Examples of these are low key lighting,close up, iconography and innocence,unusual locations.

Low key lighting is when there is one key lighting and no others and this creates shadows around the characters.This can be seen in both scenes with the girl under the bed and her dad talking to her on the phone.This makes the scene feel uneasy as we now know something dark will be happening in the future. Secondly we can see all the emotions on the peoples faces due to the dark and light contrasts and this makes their faces express more emotion and this makes the scene feel more real.This makes the audience connect more with the characters and this helps them want to continue to watch as they now want to know the story of the character .So it builds a relationship by making a character feel scared and in turn a audience feels sorry for the person and cares about them. Or when low key lighting is used they can feel safe around a certain character and this can make him seem more powerful or trustworthy and if that characters dies it s quite a big blow.


Iconography is the use of props in a scene to convey meaning. This is  used throughout the scene in many different objects . The phone that the man is holding is the most important at the start as it is the connection between him and his daughter; later is is the connection between him and his daughters kidnappers and the only way of finding her.The phone is trying to express how helpless she is and how the man can at that moment do nothing about it.Also it could show the distance between them and how they are very far from each other.This makes the audience feel sorry for the daughter but wonder what the father will do now that she has been taken.



Innocence is a convention that is often used in thriller films.More than likely there is a helpless person who is alone or away from home and they are in danger and only the main character can save them. This happens in Taken as you have a girl alone in Paris who is kidnapped and her father thousands of miles away in California helpless to do anything.This is a convention as many films use it as an objective for the films plot line to get them back.This helps make the audience feel that they want to know whether the innocent person gets saved this is highly likely but it can be a good twist if it does not.Innocence can make an audience car deeply and want to protect a character and when that person dies the audience does feel worse than if no relationship was built.


Different locations is another convention used in thriller films. There is often a long way between the place where the main character is and the objective that they are trying to get.This gives the hero a path to follow and makes the story more interesting.In the case of Taken the girl is very far away and now her father needed to go ta a foreign country and this helps the story as now they are out of their comfort zones. This helps the audience feel engaged as now they can see hoe the character reacts in the place and now wants to know what will happen.

A close shot is also used in the clip it is used to show the emotion on peoples faces and what they are feeling. In taken there are two close ups focusing on different people the first is on the dads face he looks full of concern and worry but he is still calm. The girl on the other hand is very different as she is crying and sobbing down the phone. The director does this as from this we can tell what type of people they are one is calm and the other is not as controlled in her emotion. This is to help the audience also relate to his characters through their faces. This builds a relationship with the character as it shows the emotions on a characters face and as people have all had these emotions it is easy to relate to that. Also it gives you a sense of what the characters is like e.g if he is angry he is likely to be a killer.

Overall there  are many ways that the clip shows different aspects of a thriller film. These are just some of he ways that can be used to create a good thriller piece.


















  

Friday, 4 October 2013

Research into the BBFC age rating- Mrs Georgiou

                                 Research into the BBFC age certification

The BBFC are the British Board of Film Classification and are a non-government organisation that  runs off of the money from classifying films. They make no profit and do there job mainly to protect children  but also the public from harmful material such as violence and sexual scenes to show parents what films are suitable for themselves and there children and have been doing so since 1912.There ratings now are U,PG,12,12A,15 and 18 each have different themes suitable for there audience.
U: 
U is universal and acceptable for viewing by anyone no matter what age. It raises no adult themes such as violence,drug use, sex or nudity or bad language and does not portray any dangerous imitable behavior which could be copied by children wanting to do the same things as characters in films do.This certificate was made in 1912 when the BBFC was originally started and was one of there first rating certificates. Examples of films that apply to a U rating are The Smurfs and Rio which are targeted for children so contain no inappropriate themes .Although many films rated U are not necessary for just children, many older films have this certificate just because they were suited for the times that they were shown. Although the audience for these films are predominately children with there parents.

: PG
Pg is short for parental Guidance and can be seen by the general public or young children if they are accompanied by their parents. This film could be quite disturbing for a very young child and may not have children in mind when the director was making the film. An example for this could be the film The Artist which is a silent film which is not targeted towards a child audience but is a PG but maybe boring for children with no noise.No themes are not allowed at the certificate of PG but they need to be portrayed in a suitable manner.For example there may be blood but not how it was inflicted so not showing a open wound.Violence can be acceptable but it needs to be very weak and horror may only have some jumpy parts but none that depicts true scary images. References to sex can only be in brief detail and comedy can lesson the impact of them which then could be made acceptable.Bad language is acceptable as long as it is very mild e.g "bloody" or if it is in context. More examples of PG films are Madagascar, How to train your dragon and Toy Story.These again are mainly watched by children and there parents so have no adult themes.

12A/12:
12A means that anyone over the age of  12 can go into a cinema and watch the film and this certificate is only available at the cinema. The A means that children who are accompanied by an adult may see the film.This film certificate rating is just for film's at the cinema and is not used for DVD releases where a 12 is use but they are the same.This film may again have minor swearing ( shit,bitch) although no strong swearing (fuck) although no homophobic or racist words will be used.Sexual content will be mild but any strong references or images will take it up to a 15.Violence is acceptable but must not be the main point of a scene. It is acceptable however if strong things such as blood are in a appropriate place e.g hospital.There also may be drug use but it will only be referenced to or not visible on screen.An example of a 12A film is Iron Man 3 and Fast and Furious 6.Many adult films are rated 12A but are unintentional such as The Great Gatsby which children again find uninteresting. The audience  for this type of film is young teenagers and children so must be deemed appropriate for them and by their parents.

15:
15 rate films are only available to be watched by people who are over the age of 15 but not children accompanied by adults.In 15's any theme is allowed but some must be controlled as it is still not a 18 in certification. The things that are allowed are strong language, strong violence, sexual activity,sexual nudity, sexual violence , discriminating language,self harming and drug taking.Although these are portrayed in the film none can be perceived as endorsing any of the actions in the film as this could lead to dangerous consequences for the film makers.Also dangerous behavior is allowed in the film such as self harming and suicide but can not be the main focus for a long period of time as to not glorify it.Examples of films certified 15 are Olympus has fallen,2 Guns and Looper. The target market for this group of films is adults and old teenagers so adult themes may be used.These can be seen in the type of films that are produced under a 15 certificate.Children should not see these films as if they do they could be traumatized by the experience of seeing adult themes.Many adult who do not want to see a massive amount of violence or gore see these films as big adult themes are toned down.

18:
18 can only be viewed by people who are over the age of 18 and children are not allowed to view it as strong adult themes are current throughout the film.All themes are allowed for 18 as now people can choose whatever material is appropriate for them.So there is likely to be strong violence, strong sexual scenes and very strong language throughout and possibly some scenes adults may find disturbing.The only thing that is limited it things that portray thing such as terrorism and rape as acceptable things these will be not allowed and cut completely. Examples of some rated 18 films are Django Unchained, The Conjuring and Sin City.The audience for these films is strictly for adults and no children can see them and would be disturbing for younger children.Also many adults are put off by strong rating of films as they simple do not want to see them.


In conclusion the BBFC do a good job of putting different films into each of there certification categories depending on there content.We have found out what themes make each film and what makes them be put specifically into each category and then what audience then they are deemed suitable for.

My age certificate will be a 15 for many reasons.15 still allows adult themes which are hard to miss in a thriller film and anything above will be unnecessary as it is not a horror film so any themes can be toned down. Also a 15 opens the audience range that can see my film.If we made it a 18 many people could not see it and this limits our target audience and  some people would be put off with the high rating of the film and not see it.So overall it is old enough to have adult themes but not so strong to put people off.