Storyboard

Here is our storyboard for our thriller, it is a basis for all our ideas and what we will refer to when we film our shots. Our team member Ellie, drew out the storyboard, me and Brandon had a discussion over the phone on the kind of shots we wanted to capture, and our other team member Georgina helped decide on these as well. We all agreed on the type of shots and Ellie drew them up into this storyboard. I am very happy with it to use as a basis for our ideas. 

 

Q&A on Our One Page Pitch

Me, Ellie,Georgina and Brandon, were asked questions on our one page pitch which we began to explain in detail to our Media teacher, Mr Welch. I edited the video using Windows Movie Maker so I could get used to the software, and practice editing skills.

Our One Page Pitch

Age rating:
Our age rating is a 12. I looked at the BBFC regulations and have selected an age rating that I think will be appropriate to audiences. A rating of 12 seems suitable as our thriller will glaze over the murder scene so there will not be any graphic violence displayed. There will not be any scenes involving drugs or sex. However the theme will be mature and suitable for ages 12 and over.

Target audience:

Our target audience will be between ages 12-25. We are targeting our film at young adults as we think that is a good age to target our thoughts about the issues raised in the media text. Our media text will be used as a form of escapism. It will be used for people to escape from reality and everyday life. The media text is used to provoke an emotion from the audience or can be used as a way of expressing ideas about the topic of the film with friends, family or acquaintances. We do not want audiences to be passive when watching our thriller, we want people to question our ideas and what happens in the film, as it will raise issues regarding gender empowerment and sexism.

Statement of intent:

For our story, our theme is envy and jealousy, and how it can drive people mad. We have chosen to tell the story that we have to portray how delusional love can make people, and the drastic ending that one woman had to take when her love for a man was disrupted. For us as a group, we feel passionately about this subject, as although we haven’t personally experienced it, we know how being unfaithful can shatter someone’s heart. The feeling is unimaginable to comprehend, as the love of our main characters life betrayed her trust, as well as using the other woman. The audience, we feel, will care about this subject, as it is very commonly portrayed in the media and women’s feelings and thoughts are never shown.  In the modern day, we feel like the story of a man having an affair leaving a woman heartbroken and deluded, is appropriate to tell. Our aim is to make men think about their actions, as not many women will just forgive and forget. Our main woman character is strong, and although a murderer, her motive was that she either ended his life or hers, because she couldn’t take the news of his affair. We hope that the audience will feel the need for the story to be told, as it is an important aspect in relationships – and the gluttony of men or woman thinking they can have two loves, is sadly mistaken.  We have chosen to make our thriller a film opening, as opposed to a TV drama, as with TV drama characters can develop over time, whereas our characters we want their personalities to be clear throughout.

Plot

For our plot we have chosen to have many characters stood around a coffin, either viewing it in the morgue or crying, or around a grave. We want the characters to show emotion, to know that the loss has made a massive impact, and 2 women we want to stand out immediately, perhaps by cutaways from one to the other. But one noticeably crying, the other one noticeably looking angry ( the girlfriend and the one he is later revealed to have had an affair with ). For the second scene we want a clear flashback, where the main character BOB and his girlfriend MARY are shown in a montage of clips doing things together such as going on dates – the story of how they fell in love. After this we want a clear shot of suspicions, with MARY lurking around where BOB is, later to be looking out of a window and seeing BOB with the girl he’s having an affair with ( JESSICA ). After BOB returns from his affair that night, we see MARY look smiley and happy, however we (THE AUDIENCE) see she has a knife behind her back. We have shown to include the audience in dramatic irony, that she wants to kill him, as then they can infer for themselves what will happen, without actually being shown it.

Tag-Line;

The female of the species is much deadlier than the male

The what if premise:

What if the love of your life, the one you held closest to your heart, the one who you would do anything for, cross mountains and oceans for, betrayed you? What if the man, who promised to love you and to cherish you, no matter what, lied to you?  What if because of his poisonous and vile lies, everything you worked for and everything you’d treasured had come crumbling down?  What would you do? Could you forgive him? Or would you take your revenge?

Six Stages of Media Production.

In the media industry, there are various stages in creating a film and, in order to apply these stages and gain more of an insight to how to include these stages in our thriller, I decided to research them.

Negotiating a deal

The film industry is made up of big studios, where ideas must be pitched to a studio. After a film has been pitched successfully, the studio's producer hires actors, directors and a crew to work on the film. An example of some of the major film industries are: Warner Brothers, Disney, Sony Pictures, Paramount, Universal and 20th Century Fox.

In order for a film to be successful, it is suggested that it needs to be:

• A sequel to a box office hit
• A remake of a European box office hit
• An adaptation of a best selling hit
• An original idea from a successful director

For our thriller, we haven't specifically followed these suggestions, however we have taken inspiration from successful films and music videos, for example Taylor Swifts Blank Space music video, Sam Smiths Not The Only One music video and the Gone Girl film. I feel it will be effective as we have taken inspiration from many successful videos and adapted them to fit our story-line.

Pre-Production

As soon as a deal has been negotiated, the production team has a lot of preparation to do before shooting begins. Actors must be cast in roles, locations decided, costumes made, dialogue coaches hired, and hotel rooms booked for locations. This process will take a long time, and finally after everything is decided - the official starting date is decided and announced to the press.

For the pre production of our thriller, it is our Research and Planning stage. This involves my groups storyboard, ideas on plots, camera angle ideas and much more planning drafts. We need to ensure that everything is planned out, just like many major movie companies. However we do not have to worry about the large scale that movie companies do, as its a thriller opening, for school and everyone is on the same level.

Production

The actual production stage in films is arguably the hardest, as everything must be precise and correct, or it could cost a fortune to re-shoot scenes. It is often called the 'Principal photography' stage, an is often the shortest of them all. Films usually finish this part in about 50 days of shooting.

For our film, we realise the importance of this stage and therefore recognize that research and planning is the most important stage with regards to helping filming run smoothly. This is why I have decided to research the film industry, and the various different stages to gain more of an insight into how the process works. We obviously - with only filming a 2 minute introduction - will not be filming for 50 days, as we only have certain shots we need to get.

Post Production

Post production is the longest stage in the process. During this stage the film is edited, and the story put together. The director and editor may either be very close during this time, or distant - for example Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker work together for many months to completely finish a film. Sound is edited or added in, and visual effects are also edited into the piece.

For our film, post production will include our editing stage - on Premier Pro - and many other software, and this is where we can experiment with certain effects or gradients and decide what works best to create effect. For us, I personally think our Editor and the rest of our group will be working together, so everyone has an input - and we will share responsibility for editing certain aspects. This I think will be effective as everyone knows what is going on.


Distribution and Marketing

Every part of the process is crucial to making the film a success. Marketing is the key to power in the media industries. Distributors tens to promote and market films in particular areas and negotiate release patterns with exhibitors. In the US the 'major studios' through their own distribution companies or in partnership, took over 80% of the North American market.

For our film, we recognize that marketing towards a target audience is beneficial, as they are the main people that will view a film, therefore we have done a lot of research into our audience and even interviewed members of our audience - young adults - to see what they think of our ideas.

Exhibition

In the US the major studios were barred from ownership of large cinema chains however overseas there was no such restrictions and places such as Warner Brothers have built multiplexes in cinema markets. Ownership or control of stage productions is known as vertical interrogation and had advantages for the majors in ensuring that they will have a cinema available to take a film when its ready for release.

It is important that I understand what the process is when films are created, so by looking into the process of exhibition and what happens when films come to cinemas, it helps me further my knowledge of the media industry.

Representation in Media: Disability

In my media theory class, we have been looking at representations of different aspects of society and the world, such as how gender, class, sexuality and disability is represented in the media. For our media thriller, I think it is relevant to look closely at disability and different ways it is represented in the media, to make informed decisions on whether we want to represent it within our thriller. Here is some research that I have found out:

I visited various websites and read their articles on disability, one website informed me of the first televised plots featuring actors with a disability, and what these plots entailed. Within the British media there has been many shows such as Work at St. Dunstan's (1916) which was a TV programme giving viewers an exclusive look into a hostel for World War I soldiers who were blinded. This was one of the first programmes where disability was looked at in depth. Another programme showing disability was Fox Farm (1922) a silent feature that showed in depth the love between a blind farmer and a girl. This shows that the audience were aware of the issues with blindness and the hardships people with that disability faced from very early on in British media. Another documentary aired on British television highlighting disability was St Christopher (1967) which gave audiences an insight into Barney Platts-Mills' organisation that cared for children with many different disabilities around the UK. The programme A is for Autism (1992) gave audiences a strong perception and view into the lives of autistic individuals, highlighting the issue and encouraging viewers to recognize the disorder. A BAFTA award winning documentary called The Boy whose skin fell off (2004) showed the last few months of a Northumberland man that was born with a disabling skin condition, this showed the hardships he faced, and sparked a lot of interest and acclaim due to the award, for how the documentary showed his story.

Another article I looked at spoke of the Ricky Gervais sketch on popular TV show The Office encouraging employers to hire more disabled people, in a comical yet also serious way. Ricky - acting as a manager - is asked "would you hire a disabled person?" and immediately replies with "yes" something that most organisations answer when asked the question. However, quickly after Ricky begins to list the types of disabled people he couldn't hire, as they wouldn't be right for the job "Not dwarves. They can't reach stuff" and "Not blind. Dogs no good to you in here". Obviously poking fun at the pathetic discrimination of many companies who barely hire disabled people, it raised many eyebrows and praise, as Ricky spoke out for a wide group of people whose voices have clearly not been heard by employers. Nicky Clarke, a mum of two disabled children writes 'Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant produce projects which tackle our culture of discrimination and ignorance about difference. Their projects are imbued with a light touch and a sense of humour.' This shows that many people feel that a stand needs to be taken for those with disabilities, as they are cruelly dismissed from jobs that they are capable off, simply from the harsh discrimination which society seems to have.




When I questioned myself to think of disabled actors, one particular name stuck to mind; Warwick Davis. As he was included in Ricky Gervais' series An Idiot Abroad this further shows Ricky's passion to not underestimate or discriminate against people with disabilities. Warwick is best known for his role as an Ewok in the Star Wars films, as well as having various main roles in the Harry Potter phenomenon. Warwick was also, coincidentally, interviewed by Nicky Clarke - who I aforementioned - and had many views on disability and the media. When asked if he considered himself to be disabled Warwick said;  'There is a lot of other for me complications and sort of other issues related to me being short than just being short, and sometimes those things are debilitating in the fact that walking any distance is painful and things like that so in that side of things I do but I see being short also as being, it has enabled me to do everything I have ever done'. This shows that as a famous actor, and as Warwick is known for being short, he recognizes people may see his height as a disability however for him personally, it has led him to bigger opportunities. He made a fictional TV series called 'Lifes Too Short' with Ricky Gervais that focused on his height and disability within the media. I watched the making of the series to gain more of an insight into what the show was trying to achieve, and it focused a lot on the hardships that the character Warwick Davis, faced on his journey to fame. For example, after getting his big break in a show with Helena Bonham Carter, she begins to discriminate against him saying "I cant have its face staring at me" this shows the hardships that many disabled people face in society, not being treated as equals simply for their disability. Ricky Gervais says off the show 'I think people have already made their minds up before they've seen it that this is a cruel comedy because there's a...little person involved, so it has to be cruel.' The show illuminates the issues about societies prejudice for dwarves with one woman asking to take a picture of Warwick, then saying 'its funny isn't it...a dwarf carrying a box' 

 

Sharing ideas and gathering feedback from our target audience.

For our thriller, we decided to question members off our target audience - young adults - to see what they thought about the ideas we had. I asked them questions in a casual way, to gather their honest opinion about our thriller ideas. As they also are in our media class, they were able to comment on some of the suggestions I gave and suggest how we could improve, or shots they thought we should use. This helped me gain an understanding off how best to market our thriller towards our target audience, as we received effective feedback on what they would like to see, possible outcomes etc.

Experimenting with Camera Shots.

In preparation for filming our preliminary piece, I took it upon myself to take home the schools Nikon D5100 camera, to practice getting the shots that I wanted. My main aim was to figure out how to make the subject of a photo/film the focus, whilst the background remains blurry. This is a shot that I have especially been wanting to use in my film, ever since viewing a video on YouTube of a students media piece ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwsUnPHRXEM ). When I viewed this video I realised how much focus the shots put on the people in the film, and during my thriller I particularly wanted to use this shot a lot.
Here are some of the shots that I captured, and I am very pleased them:

Targeting an Audience

Targeting an audience, is one of the key aspects to planning our thriller. We must establish a specific market, as this would enable us to make our film as effective as it can be. I looked at several different theories to help gage more of an understanding about how to target the correct audience.

In 1974 two theorists, Bulmer and Katz developed the theory that audiences watch media forms for many different reasons. These are:

• Diversion - to escape from everyday life
• Personal Relationships - to use media for emotional and other interaction.
• Personal Identity - to create their own identity from characters in media
• Entertainment - as a mean of relaxation and enjoyment.
• Surveillance - to gain information.

Another theory on audiences and how to best target them is the LifeMatrix tool, which defines audience categories around values and beliefs. These are categorized into:

• Tribe Wired - Free spirited, creative young singles.
• Fun - Aspirational, fun seeking young people.
• Dynamic Duos - Hard-driving, high-involvement couples.
• Priority Parents - Family values, active
• Home Soldiers - Family orientated, ambitious.
• Renaissance Women - Active, caring, influential mums.
• Rugged Traditionalists - Traditional male values.
• Struggling Singles - High aspirations, low status.
• Settled Elders - Older lifestyles.
• Free Birds - Vital, activists.

The two-step flow theory is a hypothesis introduced by Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, Hazal Guadet. The two steps are:

1. Opinion Leaders get information from a media source.
2. Opinion Leaders then pass on information, along with their interpretation to other people.

Opinion Leaders - pay close attention to media, are influential and are similar to those they inspire.

By gaining this information, its helped me realise how the audience will react to the media thriller that i am in the midst of planning.