Taking on board feedback

Originally we had planned for our opening to end with Laurel on the phone and then the story would cut to a previous time in a flashback style. However, after receiving feedback from Katherine we decided that the ending needed polishing up as it left the audience slightly unsure on what happens and looked almost un-finished. After discussion we decided a simple black screen following Laurels phone conversation would be simple and effective as an ending. We're happy with this decision and take on board all feedback given.

Opening to 'Phone Grid'

This is our finished opening sequence.

We would be grateful for your opinions about the camerawork, sound, mise en scene, lighting etc.
Thank you.

Soundtrack

We struggled to find a suiting soundtrack to accompany our piece. As the pace of the shots was naturally slow, we decided the soundtrack should be contrapuntel to the action but at a faster pace so that the entire opening seemed faster and not so dull. After much time on garageband we finally settled and the sound is now completed.

Draft Evaluation- Emma Chamberlain

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

The hidden identity of the phone owner along with the putting the phone in a isolated setting, shown by the original establishing shot, creates confusion within the audience which is a typical convention of thriller films and allows for the audience to ask questions which results in them being more inclined to watching. The following characters allowed us to have a limited depth of characterisation and due to this lack of detail the audience is once again forced to ask questions on how the characters relate to each other, why they are all being rung by an unknown number and most importantly, why have we chosen to show this as our opening.  These questions where what we tried to achieve within our opening through the use of thriller conventions that we

have previously studied.

 

'21 grams' 3 characters

 

Our 3 characters, hidden faces.



Our opening was similar to ’21 grams’ (a high budget thriller film) in that there was little depth in to each character shown and therefore we struggle to understand what is happening using this restricted narration. The tittles and the sound where typical to a thriller in that the soundtrack was contrapuntal to the action and it also reflected the thrilling feel we desired in the eerie piano notes and climactic instruments.  The camera movement such as slow establishing shots, allow the audience to see the remote setting which connotes isolation and fear within the audience which is a typical convention of a thriller film and is used in many other thrillers to allow the audience to understand the setting such as Donnie Darko where we see a long shot which stretches longer than most first cuts allowing the audience to really notice the setting.




Donnie Darko-Establishing shot



Establishing shot

Other long shots of the characters and framing shots through a window for example, create a sense of hidden point of view and the characters being watched.


Through the window shot in the programe 'Wallander'



Through the window shot in our product












 This is a typical thriller convention and is seen in programmes such as wallander which is a famous thriller programme. Another way we used forms of a thriller film is in our sound effects that where added using mainly garage band. The alarm clock noise was sharp and violent which came as a shock during the calm and flowing feel created previously by wipe cuts but disrupted by this sound effect. This shock effect makes the audience slightly worried and aware something possibly dangerous and frightening could be about to happen. The sound effects where louder than the soundtrack and where used mainly to keep the audience on edge as well as to enhance the naturalistic feel to our media product.

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

Our product represents gender traditionally, such as the male character is shown coming out of the gym to represent the typical stereotype of men being strong and hard. In comparison to this the women are shown to be in typical female situations such as in the kitchen cooking, reflecting the stereotype of women are housewives, and in the bedroom brushing hair to show how women traditionally care about their appearance more than anything else. 

Our representations of gender in the final product

 This representations are traditional for gender. The costume chosen represents gender traditionally also- the man wearing a blue top and the women wearing pink trousers. Props such as the ring on one of the females fingers and the surrounding hair and beauty products for the other female also represent a typical gender stenotype, women are more concerned with their appearance compared to the man who is walking but has no bag or accessories, to show that men care less about these things.  However, the sound focusing mainly on the phone ringtones is not traditional to gender stereotypes. Both male and female have standard ringtones that do not connote any gender stereotypes, this breaks the traditional representations of gender. Another way in which we broke the traditional gender representations is that the male character is leaving a gym. Typically males are not assumed to care about their appearance but here we show a man who clearly does and therefore we go against any traditional stereotypes.

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

When discussing the media product and it’s target audience as a group we came to the conclusion that the best institution for our production is Diffusion, followed by BBC short films to distribute our product. This distribution company focuses on short films from british filmmakers. Our piece fits this description and also the short film category prevents the need for us to stretch the film out any longer  than necessary. BBC short films is open to everybody with internet access, which slightly restricts our audience however it has already hosted many short thriller films such as ‘playground’ a 9 minute long thriller made by a university student.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p00fwg9h



This is a similar film to ours and as it has had such good feedback from the BBC short films website, it ensures that our product would be suitable for this website also.  In turn we wish to get our product aired on television such as BBC3 to widen the audience, (you can see on the link the audience is mainly '16-34 year olds focusing on new talent') BBC3 is a good channel as it’s not prime TV and wouldn’t be attracting an audience of too larger scale however it would still publicise our product better than any internet page could as more people watch TV. The bonus’s of airing our piece originally on the internet is that the distribution costs will be considerably less, It would be suitable for our chosen target audience though because we are aware that 15-21 year olds would have internet access and are more likely to watch films using the internet than an older generation therefore we will hopefully get positive audience feedback.  Being on the internet however relies on word of mouth, our audience will most likely watch our piece because it has been recommended rather than accidently, which is a possibility for TV audience. Due to this we are aware the audience will be considerably less but the costs saved from our choice of distribution will make up for this. By distributing our piece online we will stop any confusion, the audience are ‘getting what they pay for’ rather than if we tried to air our product at the ODEON cinema where the audience will have higher expectations that will fail and therefore we will receive negative feedback. Another choice we made as a group is to release our film on a Wednesday as the competition for new films is less- it’s an ‘off-peak’ time for releasing new films. This will hopefully boost our views and achieve good feedback and recognition.  


Who is the audience for your media product?

We chose to target our media product at 15-21 year old males and females from a modern British lifestyle. We decided it would be suitable to certificate our product as a 15 which according to the BBFC allows for: ‘Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised.’ In the storyline of our film it creates a thrilling aspect to it and although the horror within our storyline isn’t to the point where it would create anxiety within the audience it is enough to be exciting which will also attract our older audience members such as 21 year olds. We also use Imitable behaviour is also used, this also allows for an exciting drama feel to our product which keeps the audience entertained as well as attracting the older end of our audience. We decided to change our original idea for an 18 certified film as we used younger actors that will attract a younger audience such as 15 year olds, this allows us to still have a thrilling and exciting feel whilst able to attract an audience as young as 15.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We where able to attract our target audience using different affects that created a thrilling feel that teens desire such as an unknowing protagonist, slow and long pan shots that create a build-up feel. These things combined with the eerie soundtrack and loud sound effects all create a thrilling feel which our target audience of 15-21 year olds desire. The actors and characters we used in our product will reflect our target audience and also allow for them to feel empathy with the characters. This relationship between the characters and the target audience will help to build the audience’s emotions towards the characters and therefore feel empathy towards them when drama effects them within the story. All these factors allow us to address our audience correctly whilst also conforming to the thriller conventions that have previously been mentioned. The minor violence, dangerous behaviour and horror styled action can help attract not only the younger range of the audience (15-17 year olds) who desire the action and thrill that they would not get from a film that is certificated below a 15, but the older and more sophisticated audience will also be attracted to our film despite its 15 certification and the limitations that come along with that. The older audience will still be attracted by this and we know that because they can still enjoy our complex storyline with features such as a hidden identity and the restricted narrative.

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

·        Learnt to set white balance and why its important,

·        How to shorten the clips to cut out any ‘waste footage’

·        Add sound to an already finished movie

·        Use garageband to add sfx that are vital to create a realistic film

·        180 degree rule etc

·        Mirrors when filming, avoid getting the camera in the shot.

·        Using the tripod to create stiller filming, avoiding the handheld effect that is only good for specific shots.

·        Zooming in to avoid moving the camera, better quality. Used this a lot
·        Pace is created not only with the length of shots, establishing shot at the beginning of our scene, but the music. Without our music

Looking back at your prelim task, what do you feel you've learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Our prelim task was constructed using basic apple software that restricted us from editing to a higher standard and including effects that can only be found on software such as ‘imovie’ and ‘final cut’. After filming our final product we decided to get the best results we would need to use more advanced software to get the best results and so, we used ‘imovie’ and ‘final cut’. I feel in the process of using these editing software’s I have learnt how to use effects that before weren’t possible and use different transitions such as wipes as well as recognising when each transition was suitable to make the product fully effective in creating a thriller feel. Not only did we learn to use better editing software but the camera itself was a better standard. This new HD camera had different controls for the filming as well as using different memory storage- a tape was no longer in use. Because of  these differences I feel I have learnt to adapt to different software that will suit our product best, changing the technology in order to achieve the best results as we learnt from using the standard software and technology in our prelim task didn’t achieve the high level of quality that we wished for. Location was another big change from our prelim task as we where allowed to film off site and in any location that we thought was best suited for our thriller opening. Due to this we where able to have a selection of interesting settings that reflected our characters to help the audience see characterisation and feel empathy for them. Props, costume and all other areas of mise en scene where discussed and prepared thoroughly before filming. The pre-planning techniques used within our final product compared to our prelim where vital in getting the results we wanted. Each person in our group needed to have a particular role and needed to be prepared to bring to each set, the vital equipment. I took the role of props and sound and was in charge of the phones and radio predominately. After the prelim task I think I became more aware of how important it is to plan affectively and be prepared to have all props ready for the filming before hand. The storyboarding stage was also different in our final product as we found in the prelim task that drawing on paper was not clear, hard to change when we needed to adjust shots and ended in confusion. In our final product we decided to use post it notes for each camera shot which allowed us to make changes where needed. We also introduced the use of animatic to show our storyboard in a more creative way that we could also compare our final footage to so that we could see changes we made along the way. This was never used before and so it was a new and useful technique used compared to the prelim task. Part of my role in the group was to focus on the sound of the product, in doing so I learnt effectively how to use garageband to create sound effects, cut the sound to fit the action and put the sound and the action together to create a final product. In the prelim task I didn’t have any experience with garageband.

Titles and Credits - Jamie Parrett

No Country for Old Men


The placement of the company names and the flim itself was in the centre of the shot with white writing on a black screen making the titles stand out. I personally didn't like the way they did that because it was normal and boring, i wanted my group try something different. The music used in the piece builds tension throughout the sequence, but it stops when it gets to the climax of the beginning where the arrested man sneaks up on the policeman and starts choking him to death. I like the way that there is no sound when the titles are shown, this is used to make the audience concentrate on the credits and not the sound being used. The graphics are in bold font so they're easy to see and read, as well as all the letters are in upper case, maybe to create a sense of urgency showing that the character in the film lives a dangerous lifestyle. I like the use of fonts to bring out the personality of the character without the viewer having to wait and watch the start of the film, they can start questioning his job and hobbies. The mood throughout the opening is a bit tense until the arrested man starts choking the man death, everything suddenly turns more upbeat, near death experience tyoe music starts playing until he stops struggling, then the music stops completely. I especially like the way which the music is used to make the man struggling seem over dramatic and then suddenly cut dead to make the viewer shocked.


Misery


The placement of the name of the film and the logos of the companies on a black screen in the centre of the shot to make the writing easier to see/stand out. The actors names are also always in the centre line of the shot, making the audience look and read them. I personally feel that the way they displayed there credits was dull and boring and it seems like they put no effort into them, and its quite repetitve with them in the centre of the shot everytime. The music used is contraputal showing that the character has a fun side as well as a serious side to his personality. In the beginning of the title sequence, it only uses natural digetic sound to show the character concentrating on something which seems important. I like the use of music as it shows the audience that the character does have more than one side to him, maybe helping the audience to side with the character early on in the film. The graphics used in the titles is effective as the red of the writing and the boldness makes the title stand out from the background. All the letters of the title are in upper case showing the audience that there is a sense of urgency about what the character is doing. I don't like the colour used in the title as the red connotes blood and death, this may put off the viewer and make them not want to watch it. The mood of the tilte sequence is one of concentration while he is typing his book but once the contraputal music kicks in, then the mood changes to happiness showing the character is glad to have finally finished typing his book up, but once the car crashes, the mood changes to shock and disbelief. I like the way the opening title sequence changes all the time to keep the audience guessing to what kind of film its going to be. I thought that my group could use something like this for our title sequence but in the end we decided on somehting else.


Seven


The placement is not always in the centre of the screen, making the viewer look around the screen to read the names, drawing their attention to make them notice the next object is. The titles are sometimes placed where it was difficult to read, maybe trying to put people off. I like the use of titling to draw people's attention to the point of interest. I wanted to use that idea in our thriller film but it wouldn't have worked. The music used is very off putting, as it builds tension throughout the sequence. The music also confuses people watching it to what is actually going to happen. While the music is doing this, it adds to the confusion made by the objects being shown throughout the sequence as to why they might be showing them. I like the confusion this makes as it makes the audience automatically ask questions about the film without the setting having to be seen. The graphics used is very off putting as the font changes as well as the type of lettering used as it changes from lower to upper case, again adding to the confusion of the title sequence. Bold font and white text on black screen makes the titles stand out very well. I like this idea alot and as a matter of fact, we even used white bold font and titling in our thriller opening, this looked really good and was easily seen. The mood of the tilte sequence throughout is always tense and building the confusion by making the audience ask lots of question about the polt and outcome of the film and how all the objects in the tilte sequence relate to the film in any way at all. I like this idea as it would make ask questions about it all but to use it in our thriller would be highly inpractical as it would take up too much time and therefore wouldn't be able to fit our own footage into the opening.

Evaluation - Jamie Parrett

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

The hidden identity of the person who owns the phone which is calling everyone in the opening makes the audience ask questions and create an enigma about the opening which is what openings of thriller films aims to achieve, this also makes the audience want to carry on watching to see what happens. The characters we ended up using are being shown in a normal everyday environment, creating realism in the opening and also allows the audience to have a introduction to where the setting of the film will be. The use of camerawork allows us to give very little insight into the characteristics of the characters we have in the film, once again making the audience want to carry on watching and find out more. Using this approach for our opening makes it similar to the opening of the thriller film '21 grams' as that too had restricted narration into the characters. The titles used in the opening reflect on the phone aspect of the film. The protagonist used in our opening is the phone and the fact that it seems to be phoning random people by itself. The sound is used to create realism and put the characters into context and show some sort of characteristics. The dialogue used by each character shows the confusion by the characters themselves about receiving the phone call.

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

• Masculinity been shown, male character walking home after being in for a gym session
• Feminity been shown, first female character walking from bed to toilet anf then to make up dresser, sorting out her apperance, very modern idea within society. Second female character in the kitchen making toast, both showing mise-en-scene of traditional women and stereotyping
• All characters are of the younger generation, doing what the modern day teenager does (go to gym, making sure the apperance looks presentable)
• mise en scene has male character in the outside world exercising, female characters in the house, taking their time to get ready
• positive representation of male, being active and going to the gym, whereas there could be a negative representation on the modern day women as they waste time on apperance, possibly!!

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

After discussing as a group we decided that the best institution for our production is Diffusion as well as the film potentically being shown on BBC short films to distribute our product. This distribution company focuses on short films from british filmmakers. Our film fit into the type of films they would distribute as we ahve produced a short film. We also decided to have the viewing of our film on the internet as it stops us from having to pay out money for producing reels to allow the cinemas to rent them out to put them on view, they also weigh a lot, up to 25kg so it would be difficult to carry them around everywhere you go. However, having the film only accessable by internet, we will be relying on word of mouth by people who watch the film in the first place to get people's attention to go and view the film. Therefore by having the film on a certain link on the internetm there will only need to be one copy of the film, saves time and resources trying to get the film across the cinemas across the globe. The release day for our film will be on a wednesday as all the low budget and short films commonly release their films.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

We chose to target our thriller film at the 15-21 year old age range, teenagers from a modern British lifestyle. We decided it would be suitable to certificate our product as a 15 which according to the BFCC allows for: ‘Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised.’ As we have certificated it as a 15, it allows us to put the audience on edge throughout our film and creates suspence for the viewer, hence why we think we will attract the 21 year old audience to view our film. As it's a 15, it also allows the strong behaviour and language used throughout the film, making the film aimed at the age range we decided feel more relaxed and maybe build outside knowledge of the characters used and even make them associate themselves or friends to that character.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We have tried to attract our audience by using themes and issues which are unusual to everyday life and that way attract the audience's attention by having characters which are similar age to the viewer and have characteristics and personality traits which remind them of some of their friends, hence attract them to see it and furthermore make them come and watch it again. We have tried to address the audience by having the characters using informal language throughout the film so it makes the film itself seem realistic to the life of a teenager in real life, hence using strong language and some violence in some scenes, giving the viewers something to look forward to.

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

·        How to set white balance and why its important,

·        How to cut shots, making them shorter and losing the footage we don't need 

·        Use garage band to add sfx to make objects within the film sound realistic

·        180 degree rule, shot reverse shot etc

·        Avoid getting the camera in the shot, never look directly into the camera

·        Using the tripod to create stiller filming, avoiding the handheld effect but only effective  to create realism

·        Zooming in to avoid moving the camera, better quality.

·        Pace is created not only with the length of shots, but through the amount of cuts used

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

• On the preliminary exercise, used simple editing programs such as imovie whereas in full product we used final cut pro, which allows more complex and better quality editing.
•  Used a HD camera for the thriller project improved the quality of the filming whereas the normal camera used in the preliminary exercise made the filing seem low budget.

• In the prelim we made mistakes by choosing a variety of locations and making it difficult to pick certain areas and started to run out of time to complete the filming, whereas in the thriller opening we learnt from this and didn't choose so many locations and as a result of this, we complete the filming earlier and was able to concentrate more time on editing the scenes we had filmed.
•  Camerawork improved as in the prelim, the camerawork was shakey, the use of the tripod wasn't used with great effect and had very little knowledge of each shot/angle/movement. Compared to the thriller opening we have produced, the camera shots were less shakey and the moving camera shots were more under control and we used the tripod a lot more.
• Editing improved a lot between the prelim and thriller opening as in the prelim we used the editing programme 'imovie' which allows very simple editing to be done to a clip, whereas in the thriller opening, we used an improved editing programme 'final cut pro' which caters for more complex editing processes to occur, hence making the thriller opening look a lot more realistic.
• I felt that the biggest improvements between the prelim and the thriller opening was the sound as the sound used in the prelim was sound caught on the camera while we were filming, compared to our thriller opening, which we used a sound programme 'garageband' which allowed us to emphasis the sound the objects make within the film, making it seem more realistic





Thriller opening







Preliminary Exercise



Evaluation - Laurel Drew

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



Hidden Identities in our film

Hidden identities in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

•  The identity of the phone owner and the caller is hidden which creates enigma and questioning for the audience which is a key convention of thriller films. During my opening titles and credits research I discovered that the best opening titles sequences were those which characters had hidden identities. Also creating more enigma is that the audience don't know how the phone got into the field or why the other characters are being rung. The audience also don't know how the characters relate to each other or who they are creating further enigma This part of out product shows the use of creating enigma for the audience.
• We also use the convention that the antagonist is a human who is attacking the women who is ringing her friends for help. However our opening doesn't show this because we wanted to create enigma for the viewer.

• We also used the convention of restricted narration because the characters don't know who is ring them or why and neither does our audience. We also want the audience to find out the information along with our characters because I think it makes the film more interesting to watch and keeps the audience engaged with the story and plot. While researching thriller openings I found that many of them used this type of narration and I thought it worked better than the openings that had unrestricted narration. I found the openings with restricted narration made me want to watch the film more than those with unrestricted narration did.

Thriller films with restricted narration -
Inception http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VXkUzf1et4
Oldboy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhTbqWlUeI0&feature=related
Goodfellas - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ2RofOEAEU 

• We also used discontinuity editing because are opening begins part way through the story. This is shown by the establishing shot of the field where the attack has taken place previously, how the phone is already in the field and the man is already walking out of the gym. As our film progresses it will go back and show the audience the events prior and how they led up to the opening sequence. While I was researching the thriller openings at the beginning of the project, I discovered that both Inception and Old Boy used this technique and as a group we thought it worked really well so decided to develop it and use it in our opening.



Our Film - discontinuity editing



Oldboy (top row)
Inception (bottom row)
- discontinuity editing

• Our film begins after the disruption stage of narration which is another convention of thriller films. While researching thrillers I found that openings that started at this stage of narration were more interesting and gripping to watch. They also made me want to watch the rest of the film to find out what happened whereas those that didn't interest me began before the disruption or another part of the stages of narrative.

Films that begin with the disruption -
Inception http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VXkUzf1et4
Oldboy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhTbqWlUeI0&feature=related
Goodfellas  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ2RofOEAEU 

• We decided to use close ups of the characters hands when they were answering then the phone. We decided to do this because in Vertigo there is a shot of a mans hand holding onto a beam which drew attention to it. We thought this worked well and wanted to incorporate something similar into our opening. A similar thing was also used in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo showing the man opening the letter which again drew attention to it and created enigma and anticipation to what would happen next.



Vertigo - close up



Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - close up





Our film - close ups

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

 

• The representation of gender within our film is stereotypical as the woman is in the kitchen reinforcing the view that they are domestic and the other is in the bedroom brushing her hair showing shows the stereotypical view that women are concerned with there appearance. This is also shown by the beauty products on the dressing table further reinforcing this stereotype. Also representing the stereotypical views of gender is that we see the man coming out from the gym, this reinforces the stereotypical view that males are strong. However this also begins to show the changes in gender and the representation around it, for example as the man is exiting the gym it shows that he is also concerned with his appearance which is a more modern representation.





Gender Representations











• Also reinforcing the traditional gender representations is that a woman that is in danger from a male, although our opening doesn't show this, it is a women who is calling her friends for help. However representing more modern views is that both her female and male friends will eventually rescue her from the danger reinforcing that women are becoming more dominant and stronger.

• Our characters are more middle class people showing that they are normal, average people allowing the audience to empathise with them more. They are also aged around 19/20 showing that they are more independent than a teenager but they are still vulnerable because they are still young. This reinforces the stereotype that the younger you are the more vulnerable and weak you are because you are less likely to be able to look after yourself.

• The costumes also show the more traditional stereotypical representation as the man is wearing a blue jumper, jeans and trainers whereas the woman is wearing pink pajamas and the other is wearing lighter colours. This shows the stereotypical view that blue is a boys colour and pink is a girls. Also the simplicity of the males costume shows that he is less concerned with his appearance compared to the female who we can see is wearing jewellery further reinforcing the traditional views.



Costume



• A more modern representation of gender is shown by how the women own technology and know who to use it as shown in the mobiles they use. The more traditional view is that women don't understand technology and our film contradicts this by showing there capability to use them. The following screen shots show the phones which are owned by the women.



Technology owned by the female characters



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



As a group we decided we would want our product to be distributed on the internet site BBC Film Network (http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/). We decided to distribute our product on this website because it is fairly popular and also broadcasts many other low budget and independent British films. Also we may distribute our product on Facebook to allow us to attract a wider and bigger audience. Using the internet helps us to target our audience of 15+ year olds because they use the internet for many different things and it is also very easily accessible because most people have easy internet access. We also decided to distribute our film on this website because we would then be look to be able to broadcast it on BBC3 television channel to reach a wider audience and help make our product a success. We would rely on internet and link advertising on the BBC Film Network and Facebook, and maybe post links to these sites in Myspace as well as using word of mouth to inform people of our film.

Advantages

• Cheaper way of broadcasting
• Targets our audience as well as a wider audience
• Social networking links to the broadcasting of the film

Disadvantages

• People not finding out about the film
• People not having internet access

4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

• The main audience for our project would be ages 15 to 21. This is because our characters are aged around 19/20 and this audience would be able to relate, empathise and sympathise with our characters. Our film is also aimed at 15 year olds plus because there are scenes containing violence, imitable behaviour as well as a strong threat from the antagonist. There is also strong language throughout the film. We have decided to classify our film as a 15 because of all these reasons and we research the guidelines and boundaries of the BBFC website (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/15-2) in order to make our classification accurate.
• Thriller films are generally associated to be aimed at males however I think our film is aimed at both male and females because the characters are both male and female. I think our audience would like our film if they enjoy other thriller films and like to try and answer the enigma and mystery with created throughout the film, and try to do so before the characters themselves. I think if they like trying to work things out along side the characters with the same information and try to beat them to it, then they may also enjoy this film. Whereas if they prefer to know all the information before hand and prefer unrestricted narration then they may not enjoy our film as much.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

• Our characters are roughly the same age as our audience which i think attracts and addresses them to the film because they can relate and empathise with them because they are the same age.
• Also the film contains violence which is thrilling therefore attracting the audience because that's what they want to see.
•  A lot of enigma is created within the opening helping to attract the audience because they begin to ask question about what is happening as well as becoming confused. This helps to draw the audience in because they want to find out the answers to these questions as well as what will happen next.

Audience Feedback :-

The use of music is effective as it’s creepy yet pleasant. I like the way you used the numbers at the bottom of the screen for you names and the phone called leaves me wanting to know who’s called and why. – Lena

I like that the camera shots sort of have a CCTV feel to them because it puts the audiences mind in to the area of crime and creates anticipation-also the disjointed cuts, switching from one story line to another are really cool because they create intrigue and a sense of the unknown .I really liked that the sound seemed to get louder and more intense because it held your attention and felt like it was building up to something. I also liked the attention to little details like toast popping etc. – Jessica

Ooooh it's scary.. The fact that no one spoke apart from answering the phone built up tension as it left you wanting to find out more about the characters. I liked the obscure camera shots of the phone as it gave the impression of something being wrong or not as it should, the whole clip also gave out minimal amounts of information about the plot leaving the audience wanting to watch the whole thing. Also the shots of people in familiar places such as the kitchen makes the audience feel uncomfortable because they can relate to the situations. – Isabel

I really enjoyed it! The music is so creepy and i like the way the names appear. I also like how it introduced the characters with minimal information which left the spectator wanting more. It is very realistic and i think you should be pleased! – Alex

I think just enough information was given so the audience knows that there are 3 characters and their names and that is it. This is effective as it creates tension and atmosphere as the audience become curious and wish to find out more about these characters and their story. I like the camera shot at the beginning that zooms in on the tree with the phone underneath this draws the audience in. I thought it was effective how there was minimal dialogue used and all three characters said the exact same 5 words and that was it. I think the use of music complimented the piece well without over taking. It helped to create atmosphere and the fact that there were no lyrics meant that it didn't distract from the piece. I liked how parts of the filming were disjointed such as the toast moving from the toaster straight to the counter i thought this showed how the situation had no order and there was something wrong. I thought it was a very strong opening to what looks like a great piece, i really want to see what happens, Well done – Charlotte

I Like it! I like the way you zoom in on the phones and focus on the time. With only very little dialogue it creates tension and makes you want to carry on watching. There were various angles and camera shots. The creepy ringtones really help with the atmosphere and the writing in the corner tells you enough. It kind of reminded me of paranormal activity, the way it's kind of disjointed and how it's kind of like somebody is stalking you, watching your every move and planning something. And by only having a few characters makes it easy to follow and i think builds up tension. – Zoe

I thought that all of the camera angles from the phone to the next scene were very good as it was like you could see it from all angles around the phone and to the person the camera was 'following' it all made it look quite effective. I also think that the music went very well with the story line as it brings up lots of tension with that and little words were added in each scene, only 'Who Is This?’
To improve i think that the voices in the scene could be a bit louder as you can't hear some people as well as others, but overall it was a great performance and it makes you want to see more of which was going to happen. – Sasha

The title sequence and the cast names is really cleverly thought out. I liked that you saw the phone calling with no-one there. Also all the sound both diagetic and non diagetic worked really well. When the toast pops out the toaster in the next shot it appears on the counter but all in all a good opening with a good storyline, really kept me wanting to watch more and find out what was happening with the phone. – Amy

With the audience feedback I found that :-

• They enjoyed it
• They wanted to find out what happened next
• They were confused by the enigma created but were able to understand enough about what was happening.
• They liked the use of music and the camera work
• Thought it was realistic

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

• How to set a white balance on a camera and how it enhances a product.
• How to spot when the white balance hasn't work which allows me to know if the white balance needs to be changed, helping to make our product easier to watch as well as being realistic.
• How to use final cut whereas for our preliminary exercise we used imovie. This helped our product because we were able to use more advance editing software with a wider range of effects and options to use allowing to increase the standard of our product.
• How to use a HD camera which allowed us to get better and clearer footage of a higher quality. This allowed us also to increase the standard of our project.
• How to use Garageband as we used all the natural sound when we did our preliminary exercise. This allowed us to create a more realistic and natural film as well as use sound effectively. Also it allowed us to put a soundtrack onto our film helping to create the mood. We were also able to use both diegetic and non diegetic sound with the use of Garageband.
• How to change the volume of the sounds so they don't overpower each other helping our film to be easier and more interesting to watch.
• We used natural lighting as to create a natural and everyday feel to the opening. We wanted it to remain simple as to create more questions are create a contrast between the attack on the women (later within the plot) and her friends being unaware.
• We also used zooming on the camera at the beginning when we are gradually focusing onto the phone.

• That in order to shoot someone looking in the mirror effectively without the camera being seen the camera needs to be place in a certain position. This helped us to keep the realism within the opening without breaking the illusion and the audience seeing the camera.
• That the pace of the film can be created by the length of the shots but also the soundtrack used helping us to increase the pace of our film which is a convention of thriller films.
• That you can shorten footage, and cut bits out of the middle of the footage to increase the flow and pace of the film. allowing us to increase the pace and flow of our opening as well as allowing the footage to make more sense.
• That the better titles are often in block white letters as shown in my 'opening titles and credits research' as well as that they genuinely stood out more. We decided to apply this to our thriller opening titles.



White titles for 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo',
'One Hour Photo' and 'Vertigo'



White tiles for our film 'Phone Grid'





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

• For our preliminary exercise we were only allowed to film within college, whereas for this project we were able film off site, allowing us to get a wider range of locations and giving us more options. In this project I have learnt that often the simpler the storyline and locations are the better and more effective it is likely to be. 



Location shots



• Also there was a point in our preliminary that the white balance was off  and since then I have learn how to tell and how to fix it. Also to help us reduce the danger of the white balance being off we have used a HD camera compared to the standard camera we used for our preliminary.

Prelim. white balance

• In our preliminary exercise we also used mostly natural sound whereas for this project we used Garageband to enhance the sound.
• How titles effect the film and require thinking about, not just putting any positioning, font style and colour. This is contrasting to our preliminary exercise where we didn't use titles at all. This reinforces how we have gain more knowledge and put in into practice.
• We spent a lot more time working on the sound for our thriller opening compared to our preliminary exercise. I have learnt that sound can either enhance the film or ruin it. As we spent a lot of time working on the sound we are able to make sure it complimented our film as well as being realistic.
• Since our preliminary I have learnt about how both non-diegetic and diegetic sound can be created on Garageband and how the right sounds can increase both the pace and atmosphere within the opening.