Our final Thriller production - Blackmail

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

After re-watching our preliminary task, “The pickup”, the first thing I noticed was the quality of the audio. You can barely hear a word that is said! We addressed this in our main task by changing the equipment we used. The camera we used in our preliminary task was borrowed from the school and was not as good as the equipment my partner Linden had at home which prompted us to use these for our second filming session. This was a problem we knew we had to address In our second production and therefore we put a lot of thought into our camera positioning and the environments we filmed in. We knew that with the second production being filmed out doors that external factors such as weather and wind would need very comprehensive planning and attention. We decided we needed to be ready every night in case we had the optimum conditions for our filming that night as we knew we would not have many nights like that within the time before the deadline.

The second thing I made sure to thoroughly think through was the proxemics of our characters. In “The Pickup” we see lots of characters effectively showing relationships through the body language and stage positions. In our Preliminary task all the proxemics were done completely by accident as we had not covered the term in class and none of us had never heard of the word. However, covering the term before the production of our task helped us in a great deal as it allowed us to show relationships again but this time on purpose. During our opening scene Jamie and Linden are not shown in the same frame as each other but are instead shown through the use of parallel editing. Parallel editing allowed us to show the action of both of our characters whilst not showing them in the same frames which is purposely done to show a fragmented relationship between the two boys. The use of a flashback of the two lads together is used to show the separating of the boys as our film shows the story that leads to Linden ending his life. In the start of the narrative, the lads are never shown in a frame without each other which is used to illustrate an inseparable bond between these best friends and then end they are not shown in the same shows the separation of the of this bond and the power this mysterious black mailer has had on the bond.

The next thing we learned about from throughout the year between our preliminary task and our main task is the importance of preparation. Our preliminary task was rushed and done in an hour not long after the task was set, this left us with no time to think about our task or what we were trying to achieve. This is shown through the terrible shot reverse shot that was thrown in during post production as we realised that we had not included it and it was part of our task. With planning that shot could have been used much more usefully and help our story. I believe this mistake did help us with the production of our main task as it showed us the importance of planning, we did shooting schedules, which were very rough as we were at the mercy of mother nature, story boards, character profiles and other key bits of planning to ensure our product went as smoothly as we wished our preliminary task had gone. 

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

Before embarking on this media course I was clueless as to what went into making a media product, even one as simple as the ones students all across the country have made for their AS and A2 courses, so finding out even the simplest things like focusing a camera or cutting and sticking 2 pieces of footage together were new information to me.

During the post production stage we discussed various methods of filming “Blackmail”. Our first train of thought took us down the route of mobile technology, more specifically an IPhone 5S. This would have been useful as me and Linden both possessed Iphones of this generation or higher (Linden had an IPhone 6). This would have been useful also as it was practical as we always had our phones on us which made for ease of filming as and when the weather allowed us, as I have already stated the weather was a massive concern.  It would also make uploading our project to YouTube easy as we have wifi and mobile data meaning it wouldn’t take long to upload. Equipment for phones were provided such us steady cams and tripods, however we decided against using our phones because of the greater mexa pixel camera we possessed which would lead to better shots in our production. The longer battery life of the camera also made it more sensible as Iphones are notorious for having very short battery lives and we both were using ours to communicate with people throughout the filming process. The audio capabilities of Lindens camera also trumped the IPhone audio which helped tip us over the edge in our judgement as audio was one thing I wanted to make sure was as good as possible.

Learning how to assemble a tripod may seem like something trivial to you film whizzes but to me it was a serious lesson that took me longer than I am proud to admit.

Questions 4 & 5

Question 5 – How did you attract/address your audience?

With our thriller being produced by an independent company with relatively no budget our marketing campaign was not very successful, however we did our best to market the film through social media and producing low cost posters and posting them around the local area. We each shared the thriller on our personal facebook and twitter accounts but if we had thought about it a little earlier we would of made a page for our thriller and made as much hype around the thriller before it was finished. 

3. What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?

There are 2 different kinds of media institutions that may distribute our thriller “Blackmail”, these are Conglomerates and independent. A Conglomerate is a much larger company made up of many smaller companies known as subsidiaries. This is useful as these subsidiaries make easier film productions as they can do their own special effects and their own make up and props. However, independent film companies are much smaller companies who rely on the help of the finance of larger companies to create their films.

Our thriller would almost certainly be distributed by an independent film company as we do not have a good, well known actor or director associated with our thriller. This would mean that huge conglomerates such as Time Warner are almost certain to ignore us. Our thriller would firstly be introduced to small independent cinema before later, after a large waiting time, be released to DVD. It would not be released on BluRay or in 3D as this is the more expensive and our distribution company is not likely to have that much confidence in our production as it is from first time directors and poor acting (mainly from myself).  In conjunction with this, our thriller would only be produced in standard cinema and not in 3D or IMAX as once again these are much more expensive to produce and we will be doing everything we can too at least break even which will mean a lot of cost saving and sacrificing.

Whilst doing research with Linden on two possible distribution companies we discovered Hammer and Brain Damage films.  Hammer specialise with physiological thrillers which would complement our film as our film has a lot physiological factors and a dark and mysterious story line which Hammer would certain help us to perfect and do too full effect. Brain Damage films however are a Independent distribution company who specialise in Horror and physiological films.

The positives of working with an independent company is that it will apply to a much more invested niche market, which means our customers will be much more committed to the film and its franchise meaning we will benefit from increased sales of merchandise such as action figures, props and costumes.

However, there are negatives to working with an independent company. One of those is the lack of trust in the film can be de-motivating for the producers of the film, this is portrayed by the independent films being only shown in small cinemas and in standard cinema screens: not in HD or IMAX.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

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

Our media product does not use the conventions of real media products, for example Vladimir Propp’s character types. This theory states of 8 types of characters in a typical film; The Hero, The Villain, The Princess, The Dispatcher, The Donor, The Helper, The Father and The False Hero. However, in our thriller project many of our characters defy this or even fall under two different categories. Our main characters (Jamie and Linden) would be expected to be the hero’s, on the other hand they break the law several times in the start of the film through underage drinking, driving under the influence of alcohol and man slaughter.  Also with our Villain, he transitions from being a victim of the 2 main characters stupidity to being the ruthless villain. Our thriller also rejects this previse by completely ignoring the other 6 character types and not including them in our production.

Our production also rejects Tvetan Todorov’s narrative theory around the structure of a thriller. This theory states that films start and end with a equilibrium. However our story starts at our most intense, suspenseful part, before a flash back occurs and the whole film is shown as a flash back. This remains until we catch up with the point where we started which is at the highest point of disequilibrium. The peaks between Equilibrium and disequilibrium throughout keep our film interesting and this is why we decided to reject the theory.

One theory that our thriller does agree with is Levi Strauss’ Binary oppositions. This theory states that all films work on a contrast between good and evil. Our thriller does agree with this theory as it is all about the battle between the two teenagers and the evil mysterious figure black mailing them into doing these disgusting acts of law breaking and violence.

As for the use of codes, the entirety of my thriller opening will be using an enigma/ Mystery code, this is because they will know of Lindens suicide and of Jamie’s horror towards this but they will not know of any details as to why he has done this. This will become clear in the full film and the enigma will be resolved. Incorporating action codes may be a little harder but will do this by a close up shot of Jamie tying his shoes laces and throwing on his coat, this will be an action code of Jamie getting ready to travel somewhere quickly. We will be using Semic codes in the form of smashed glass and empty pill packets, this will be a semic code for suicide and death which is the semantic field throughout our thriller opening. Code of opposition will be difficult to portray in our opening as the villain does not actually feature until much later on in the film. However, should he of featured we would portray this through the use of darker lighting and use of music, if he enters the scene, we would dim the lights and introduce a deep slow score of the top of the scene. This would be in contrast to when the young lads are in the scene where we would be using slow depressing music to give the audience a feeling of empathy towards the agonists in our opening.