Evaluation Question 7

Along with the technologies that i have used (referred to in question 6)i feel that i have made a massive progression with the way you put a film together, for example to get the perfect shot you have to re-shoot until its satisfactory. I feel i have learnt how to create a soundtrack that can help to add tone and feeling to a film. I have improved massively with using the software and equipment (DV cameras).





I also feel that i have developed within myself as a person as we have had to contribute and play certain roles within our groups to help each other and to perform the tasks that were asked of us. For example while jodie and i did the editing and soundtrack, pheobe did the titles.

Evaluation Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this project?

I have learnt a lot about the different technologies that we have used to make our film. I have come across different digital software such as storyboard quick (so you don't have to draw it by hand or be good at art and it saves you a lot of time), final draft (you don't have to worry about formatting a word document with normal script conventions for example character names,dialogue and parenthesis). In final Cut I have developed more skills including colour correction, key framing, super imposing, adding special effects, time manipulation and cropping. I have also developed an ability to use the extended features of Livetype, including the use of live fonts.



I have also learnt about the advantages and disadvantages of the mini DV tapes that we use in our camera's over the HDD (Hard disk drive). The HDD camera's copy the footage across from the camera to the computer in one straight file so you don't have to capture the footage on the computer like you do with the DV tapes, this is a huge advantage as it saves you lots of time but a huge disadvantage is that if the disk drive corrupts you don't have a backup so the footage is lost and cannot be retrieved. So the massive advantage of DV is that even though it takes you alot of time to transfer the files you will always have a backup of your footage on the mini DV tapes.
I have also experienced using the Apple Mac's and the differnces between them and using windows..

By doing this course we also learnt how to use Blogger and Youtube. By using Blogger we are able to upload our videos and pictures to the internet and to present all our research in one certain place so it is easy to read a follow. We use Youtube to upload our videos to the internet as youtube hosts the video and this then lets Blogger access the video.

This is mine and Phoebe's preliminary task. Since doing our main task i have realised that my camera skills and my editing skills have improved the most. By watching the preliminary task you can see obvious mistakes and flaws that are less noticeable in my main task and this is because i have had more practice using the software and equipment. 

Evaluation Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our potential audience by creating an original soundtrack which would appeal to our target audience. We also attracted people to watch our film by including twins. Twins are a subject that a lot of people are obsessed about for example Can they feel each others pain? If you are not a twin you want to know how they live, if its the way we live. Twins intrigue us and we incorporated that into our film as normally twins are loving to each other and they get on but in our film we portray them as jelous and out to get revenge against each other.

  By revolving our film around two girls and the relationships between them it suggests that the film will be a 'chick flick' and this will appeal to women, as our film is a hybrid of 'chick flick' and thriller we could start to attract a new audience. The audience that enjoys chick flicks may be encouraged to watch our film as it incorporates their favourite genre. Also another new audience that we could attract would be men who would be interested in watching the two main female characters enact a murderous sinister plot.

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

The audience for our film would ideally be couples who enjoy pathological and psychological thrillers. They would enjoy to relax with each other after a hard weeks work. It would apply to the female as the film has common aspects of the 'chick flick' genre and the male would enjoy the film as its got thriller aspects. They would both be interested in rock/pop music and would probably be lower/working class. They will enjoy watching tv and listening to music. Males are statistically more likely to watch horrors/thrillers than women so males would be a more ideal target audience but with the chick flick aspects women will also enjoy the film. Even though in our film we do not portray the twins in any sexual way, men will enjoy to watch a physically appealing cast of girls.

Evaluation Question 3 - what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The distribution company i have chosen is twentieth century fox. I decided this after looking at the distribution company of dead ringer which is a similar film to ours. Dead ringers was hugely successful when it was released and this company has released other thrillers which have also ben very successful which highlights to me they are effective at distributing thrillers.
The english version/branch is called rank film organisation. This will mean that because the companies are linked my film will can be distributed across England and America generating a bigger audience and profit.


Twentieth century fox successfully distributed 28 Days AND the brilliant sequel 28 Weeks later.

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

Our film represents an older generation, our characters are represented as business women from their demure style of dress. Its smart/casual as they are of a higher social class but are casual as they are at home.


Also the twins are represented as working/middle class through the mise-en-scene in the house when they are having dinner, the cutlery and china, the fact they are drinking wine with their dinner and the formality of the twins sitting across the table to each other. A lower class person would stereotypically eat their dinner off their laps while staring blindly at the TV, it wouldn't be an important family ritual. Stereotypically killers and the protagonists are normally lower class people who have a shady background, which is normally the reason for their turn to crime.

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

Our main convention that we challenged was that we used a woman as our main protagonist. An example of another film that also challenges this convention would be Monster.


This challenges conventions from most major films as well as thrillers because women are not seen as strong or clever enough, to be capable of murder and things associated in thriller films. A professional/working class woman would normally be seen as a victim.



A normal convention that we use is our flashback scene. It is not an obvious shot as we didn't want the audience to realise that the rest of the film was in the past. We wanted to confuse the audience by quickly showing the shot of Lily dead, then bringing in both twins.
Twins aren't that common in most films so they are very rare in thrillers. I have found two thrillers that do use twins and are similar to ours using anger and revenge as their main themes.
Another convention that we used was Lily being a 'damsel in distress'. In nearly all thrillers there is a victim, Lily is our victim and her twin sister Ivie plays the role of dominance over her. Ivie tries to poison her sister and the audience are made to feel slightly worried for Lily as she has no idea that her sister is trying to kill her.

The film 'Monster' compares to our film as it also challenges the main convention by having a female protagonist being the killer. The main character is also strong willed and dominant which is like our main character. Another film similar to ours is Dead Ringers, our titles are similar in the fact that they are the same name and that they conveniently portray the film. A dead ringer is another word for a twin, there is no difference between them. Our titles contrast as they have a darker tone than David Cronenberg's psychotic thriller although David sets the tone further into the film.

Final film

This our final film. We re-edited, changed our sound track and totally changed our film due to the feedback that we were given by the other AS media students.

Rough cut of our final film

This is our rough cut of our film DeadRinger. We thought that we had nearly finished our film at this point but after having feedback from other AS media students we realised that we had a lot of things that needed to be changed to improve the film. By having feedback this enabled us to have an outside view on our film and to review things such as our storyline, to see if others could follow it.

Preliminary task

is mine and phoebe's preliminary task.

Alfred Hitchcock

No list of suspense or thriller films can be complete without mention of English film-maker/director Alfred Hitchcock.
He helped to shape the modern-day thriller genre, beginning with his early silent film The Lodger (1926), a suspenseful Jack-the-Ripper story, followed by his next thriller Blackmail (1929), his first sound film (but also released in a silent version). Hitchcock would make a signature cameo appearance in his feature films, beginning with his third film The Lodger (1926), although his record was spotty at first. After 1940, he appeared in every one, except for The Wrong Man (1956). Although nominated five times as Best Director (from 1940-1960), Hitchcock never won an Academy Award.

Alfred Hitchcock is considered the acknowledged master of the thriller or suspense genre, manipulating his audience's fears and desires, and taking viewers into a state of association with the representation of reality facing the character. He would often interweave a taboo or sexually-related theme into his films, such as the repressed memories of Marnie (Tippi Hedren) in Marnie (1964), the latent homosexuality in Strangers on a Train (1951), voyeurism in Rear Window (1954), obsession in Vertigo (1958), or the twisted Oedipus complex in Psycho (1960).

Thrillers

Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the wide-ranging thriller genre. However, this genre often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre in addition to the typical traits of the thriller genre. Also, occasionally this genre will border into the also wide-ranging Horror genre.
Generally, thrillers focus on plot over character, and thus emphasize intense, physical action over the character's psyche. Psychological thrillers tend to reverse this formula to a certain degree, emphasizing the characters just as much, if not more so, than the plot.
The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.
Sometimes the suspense comes from within one solitary character where characters must resolve conflicts with their own minds. Usually, this conflict is an effort to understand something that has happened to them. These conflicts are made more vivid with physical expressions of the conflict in the means of either physical manifestations, or physical torsions of the characters at play.

Animatic

This is our animatic. We took stills from our storyboard which we created in Storyboard Quick 5 and placed them in final cut to create this animatic. This is the sequence that our film will be when we have finally created it.

Shooting Schedule

Here is shooting schedule, this shows everybody where to be and when. This document was produced on Microsoft word. By having a shooting schedule your group and actors can be more prepared and get the shooting done on time.

Similar research - Dead Ringer

Dead ringer is another thriller that uses the theme of twins and revenge. The difference is that it is two brothers instead of two sisters. Dead ringers introduces a psychotic theme that isn't as strong in our film, our film is more about sibling rivalry.
We did not copy this films titles but they are the same as ours on our film also suggesting the similarity between our two films.
Our settings are very different to Dead ringers (1988) as their film is set mainly in a hospital whereas our film has a more homely feel as we are mainly set in a house.

Related Films

This film has a similar treatment to our film concerning twins and underlining hate and revenge.

Similar research

There aren't many films which have the same concept as ours. We found a really good example of a similar  film, its called single white female.

  Basically the girl 'Hedy' used to have a twin sister but she died at a young age. 'Hedy' then blames herself for her sisters death and proceeds to find herself another 'twin'. 'Hedy' answers an advert from annie who is looking for a roommate, and slowly becomes annie by copying her hairstyle, clothes and lifestyle. Annie finds out that 'Hedy' is really called Ellen and has killed previous girls who she wanted to be 'twins' with. Annie must escape from 'Hedy'/Ellen before she too is in danger.

   This is similar to our film in the fact that its about twins and jealousy and almost revenge. 
Another film that we have found is called Dead Ringers, this is about twin brothers who ultimately suffer from psychotic tendencies. It is again similar to ours as in the film the two brothers compete against each other and rival each other. This is a good film to compare to ours as the themes in this film are very similar to the themes in our film.

Props

This is our list of props that we will need throughout the film.

Locations

For our film we need 3 main locations; a kitchen- this needs to be quite a big range of space as we need to fit all the equipment and everybody in there to film.

our second location we will need a road; this needs to be really quiet with no or hardly any cars around as the audience does not know where the girl is heading.

For our last location we need a bedroom, this should be a medium to large size as again we need to fit everybody and all the equipment. 

The kitchen on the left would be too small for our shot as there is not enough room to get all of the equipment and we wouldn't be able to film the shots efficiently.

The kitchen on the right would be okay but its a bit too narrow for what we want. the length is great but the width is not.

The kitchen that is at the top left would be a perfect size for us to film our shots, there's plenty of space to get everything in.

Certification

All classification certificates are issued by the BBFC since 1984. They review, rate and censor movies, t.v and promotional material.

    A certificate 15 is classified normally by strong bloody violence and sex. Anyone under 15 cannot see this movie or rent it. Our movie would probably be certified at a 15 as there is a scene with blood and a scene with poison which could be unsuitable for children younger than 15. I don't think our film could have a higher certificate as it doesn't include scenes or images graphic enough. Normally kids start to watch thrillers after the age of 15 as gory horror films are popular with that age range. By giving our film a certification of 15 we can include 3 more year groups into our target audience.

Storyboard

A storyboard shows you what is happening in each shot/scene, frame by frame.

Costume plot

In our film we want to use binary opposition so our costumes must reflect this by being opposite. We want Lily(Good twin) to wear white/ light colours as she represents goodness.

On Ivie(evil twin) we want dark clothes so the binary theory works.

We want ordinary clothes that are comfortable but smart, and both outfits have to be pretty similar.

Simple jewellery and make up will be used to finish off the look.

Also the actors hair must be slightly different when playing the opposite character.

Script

A script is a document which tells you what type shot you are doing, what's going on briefly in the shot(story), The dialogue that is spoken and any non or diagetic sound that will be used.

Treatment

Dead Ringer
A treatment is the prose or the story of your film. The treatment is the first thing you will normally see or read before you watch the film. 

Binary opposition

Binary opposition is a pair of theoretical opposites. For example male-female, black-white, yes-no. normally one of the two opposites assumes a role of dominance over the other. 

    In our movie we are using many examples of binary opposition as it plays a big part in it.

Our first example is our two characters who we will dress in black and white, they are twins so this will exaggerate the differences between the two girls. Their names are also an example of opposition theory as the 'good' twin is named Lily - after the flower with its meaning pure and innocent while our 'evil' twin is named Ivie - also after the plant poison ivy which gives the impression she is evil and dark, the exact opposite of her twin.

 Our titles will also reflect the theory, our film will be named DeadRinger, it will be reflected like a mirror image and the one side will be black with white shadow behind it and the other side will be the opposite colours.
Binary opposition can create mood and tension in a film using little effort, black and white are the most popular colours that are used to demonstrate binary opposition, black insinuating mystery and the unknown, a restless emptiness whereas white contrasting heavily insinuating goodness, heaven and purity.

Split edits

A split edit is a transition to a clip that brings its audio and a video in at different times. it is normally used when transport is involved eg you hear the car horn before you see the car. An L cut and a J cut are also known as split edits.

Conventions and Thrillers

Thriller and Suspense Films are types of films known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension.
There are many different types of thrillers, these are split into sub-categories/genres:

• Spy thrillers (from Russia with love by Ian Fleming)
• Political thrillers (The day of the jackal by Frederick Forsyth)
• Military thrillers (The guns of Navarone by Alistair Maclean)
• Conspiracy thrillers (The chancellor manuscript by Robert Ludlum)
• Medical thrillers (coma)
• Forensic thrillers (Balefire by Ken Goddard)
• Psychology thrillers (Suspicion by Alfred Hitchcock)
• Horror thriller (silence of the lambs)
• Action thriller (James Bond)
• Disaster thriller (The day after tomorrow)
• Crime thriller (Memories of murder)

Conventions

Thrillers are about good vs evil, justic vs injustice where a price normally has to be paid for the ending to occur. Thrillers normally progress with a sense of danger and foreboding but with excitement at a pursuit/action part.

Normally a thriller will only be told from three certain points of view. There will be the protagonist (main character) who we will feel sympathy and empathy for, or the villain who we may also be made to feel sympathy for at a past experience they have had which has led them to the present. we may also be told from an outsider point of view which can make the audience more observant to whats going on.

Events in the plot help it to progress and make the audience guess what is about to happen next but 99% of the time they will be wrong. Also there is never any dialogue to explain what is happening and why so the story contains mystery which in turn builds up the suspense.

Most often the hero/protagonist is a strong male, who fights constantly so good can prevail. the villain can be anything from a mental character to a monster but their traits are usually revenge, anger, twisted outlook on things. There will also be a helpless 'damsel in distress' who is sexy and provocative who has to overcome a major difficulty to help the hero/protagonist.

Main themes of thrillers are usually fears of today's society so we can relate to the story being told, for example terrorism, isolation, war, pain etc.