THE THRILLER

It's finally finished! the editing took a couple of weeks, it took a little longer then planned as there was a big change in the order as we chose to do a montage, but all the editing is complete, the sound has been added, the titles as completed, i created a cool way for the name Firewall to appear and the green screen is done.


enjoy :)



for task 6 - i added in some speach bubbles to the video on youtube (above) to explain what i have learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product.

Feedback

name	what do you think the basic plot of the thriller is?	what do you think are the key strengths of this thriller and why?	how do you think this thriller could be made even more effective and why?
Kara Alberts	Government problem, hacked into military	titles and editing	none
Fran B.	security breech	good POV shots	lights not needed in the beginnings
Gen	hacker in a office, major world ambassidors under threat	very good use of editing and story	could have been a bit longer just to flas it out a bit
Anne Sophie VdW	presedent in danger political problem	very nice shots, interesting plot, makes me what to see the movie	bit confusing
Tilly Guttridge	political problem/issue	like the acompning of the non-diegetic music, titles cool	little to much dialog/ confusing editing of shots
Margot	about a hacker who hackes into national security	good storyline	put some suspense in
anominous	Conspiracy between the world leaders	effective close ups	I didn't understand it very well as there were a lot of shots of typing
anominous	President... attack of nations	Editing and music was good	It could be more clear what is happening

this is some feedback from our first public screening with our peers. i'm pleased with peoples response to the first question as it sounds like everyone seemed to understand the gist of the theme.

there was about 8 comments on how we had good shot types and angles, and quite a few also on our editing which i am really happy with because i participated in a lot of the editing.

in the answers to the final question there were a lot of comments about it being confusing wiuth all the different shots and all the dialog.

i am pretty happy with the results from our feedback and in relation to the confusion of the thriller i truthfully agree as i found it very difficult to edit it with flow and realism. We had to inform the audience of the different characters and locations involved but i think the hacker section confused most as people didn't understand him to be listening in on the conversation like we had planned. the montage at the beginning did well to inform some people of the hacking and security aspect of the thriller. i did struggle in the editing to fit all the plot in the 2 minutes and to keep it as simple as i could, but i feel their needs to be a bit of confusion in the audience to keep them intreeged to find out what is happening.

Task 1 -

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use

Task 2 - How does our media product represent particular social groups?

My political / cyber bases thriller conforms to aspects of ethnicity and gender.

In casting we had to be very careful making sure we chose actors that would signify the stereotypical genders we wanted. So for Germany and the UK we chose two white men from a 40 to 50 age range.

This conforms to stereotypical leaders as rarely countries have woman leaders as men are thought of as the dominant sex and the breadwinners; they are also thought to have more of an interest in news, politics and business. In addition Germany and the UK are white bases countries so it wasn’t likely either of them would have black leaders. For France we chose an anti-stereotypical leader and cast a woman. Otherwise it would have been a male predominant based film and I think it’s good to try and get across that woman can be strong leaders and aren’t always the subservient/stay at home wives that just cook and clean, that is just one much generalised stereotype. Using Audrey as the French leader shows that hopefully women’s voices will be accepted one day as important.

For our administrator we chose Alison as she was a good actress, and it is very stereotypical of men important men to have women assistance, I think this is because men are known as messy and unorganised where as women and stereotypically the opposite so important men need a woman to keep them in order.

Although the current President of the U.S. (Barack Obama) is black which slightly goes against stereotypes, we didn’t have the option of a suitable black actor so we decided to go with Roy who fits in with a tall, 50s looking, white leader stereotype. He may not fit the current leader but looking at past Presidents he suits the role well.

For our hacker role we chose Walter from our group as we already had 5 actors it was getting to be very complicated and Walters’s foreign appearance fitted to a Middle Eastern part well.

The ideas development for the rest of the film were along the lines of America and its allied countries were being broken into so needed to join together to ‘eliminate the threat’, but as they were in contact they were being tapped into so the hacking group knew their every move. We decided the breaking in should come from a middle eastern area as that is stereotypically know to cause trouble for the MEDCs in the western areas. Keeping the stereotypes on the story line was to make sure our audience will find it easier to understand who is against who so they can follow the story without a large amount of confusing which could of potentially put them off the rest of the film.

We cast our leaders as 40s to 50s age rang as it is thought that the older you are the wiser you get. There are very rarely young politicians high up as they aren’t as knowledgeable in life so can’t be given life changing decisions, we needed our actors to put across their mature characters seriously.

As it was only 2 minutes and only two of the characters we didn’t try to put across different sexualities in the different characters as it wasn’t a key part in our storyline, maybe later on in the film their could be wives or husbands involved but for now it isn’t very important.
I feel it is already quite evident that the characters (apart from the hacker) are from a high class as they are leaders they have extremely important jobs of running countries, and they all had smart costumes of suits showing their expensive work clothes they can easily afford.

Different Ethnicity is shown in the hacker’s character as Walter has foreign features to the leaders, like his darker shade of skin tone. There will be more involvement of ethnicity developed in the film, as there will be some link to why the western areas are being hacked with religion, as it stereotypically is partly behind foreign attacks.

To summaries we see the United States, one of the most powerful countries under huge threat; this is commonly used in films as an anti-stereotypical action as America is so powerful it is unlikely that anyone would be able to go up against it. The U.S. then go to other countries to for support and to ally so they are all protected.

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

It’s hard to know who would invest in our Cyber/Political Thriller as i think it has such a grand plot it would work very well if produced by a large company like Warner Bros. or Sony. But those companies are so big and successful it’s unlikely they would even hear of our idea let alone invest in an amateur group. So I needed to look at more local, smaller companies that are more willing to take risks.

Warp Films is an independent UK film production company, and was launched in 2002. They produced one of my favourite films 'This is England' which was said to be "The best British film since Trainspotting" by the Times. It won the 'Best Film' award at the British Independent Films Awards and the 14 year old Thomas Turgoose won 'Best Newcomer'. They are also known for producing 'Four Lions', 'Submarine' and 'Snowtown'.

Next i looked at Vertigo Films, is a UK Media company for distributing independent films. They are known for films like 'Streetdance 3D' opening all over the world and starting as no. 1 in the UK Box Office charts. Another of their known films is 'Monsters' and 'Horrid Henry' which took 36.5 million. A reason i think they would be interested in our film is because they produced 'Wakewood' partnered with Hammer, and becoming one of the best reviewed horror film in years.

'Summit Entertainment' was the last one I looked at but i feel it is too large a company as it is worldwide and a fairly new company as only began in 2007.

 Vertigo Films Thrillers :

• Pusher
• Retreat
• Valhalla
• Outcast
• Monsters - was a massive risk with first time director Gareth Edwards with a small budget of 500 k

I think Vertigo Films i would chose to produce our film as they seem more likely to take a risk on films which ours would need. They have also teamed up with other companies to have to the funding to produce some movies which ours may need. They also have produced a number of good thriller movies.

To make revenue for our film they would sell to cinemas and i think it would be a movie that grows in popularity, attracting a large male based target audience. After the cinema the film could be sold to DVD shops such as HMV and for download on iTunes. It would be important to market the film in areas such as where men are commuting as it has a relation to business in the Political side.

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

Our thriller will reach an older target audience because it is based on highly important political problems and technical cyber hacking, and after my primary research survey I found that younger audiences prefer more action in the story, so I think our age will be 30 and over.
I think people will be interested by the insight to what happens and how they are dealt with with by world leaders. The large scale of the problem also draws an audience in. The Political/Cyber thriller genre could also attract an intellectual interest in the film. Because the audience is older they will be working and so in their free time will want something to watch which can excite them and interest them.
Our secondary audience will be a 20s age group. I think they will enjoy the film because it could reach an intellectual area. The film may be more aimed at a male audience because the story is based on men in charge saving the world, and I think men like to watch this type of situation seeing men like them being the hero's. On the other hand I think we would be able to attract a female audience by casting the French leader as a women. Women will like to see another Lady in charge equal with the men, and will be able to admir the powerful roll the Audrey plays.
Feedback about the idea of the thriller from an 18 year old girl The Cyber/Political Thriller feels more like a mans film with the large amount of power involved and keen technical side of the hacking, so if we were to promote this film we would target it as a middle aged male film.

"I think it sounds really interesting, because usually it's the western world that comes out on top and is attacking the rest of the world it would seem. I think the technological aspect adds something cool to the political sub-genre. I think it could potentially be really interesting to see in the cinema if it was completed." 

Task 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

In the early stages of our thriller we did surveys to find out which age groups like what kind of film genres. I worked out that younger age groups enjoy more action films and as our thriller title sequence didn't involve physical action, joint with the rest of our survey results we knew it was a 30 - 50 age range.

The political side of the film attracts stereotypical business men who are interested in news, politics and current affairs as it has similar elements and realism within the storyline.

The man cast in our thriller are all around the age of 50, and we didn't cast them to attract women as heart throbs like Brad Pitt. We chose them as average working men so it is easy for the man audience to relate and compare themselves to the men in the thriller. The audience can also aspire to an idealised version of themselves as the world leaders.

They are also extreemly powerful men at the top with the fate of the world in their hands, with all the decisions left down to them. I think theres a part in every man that would love to be the hero and save the day. The movie would develop and later on involve a family or some loved ones to focus on and see how the man of the family protects them.

The thriller would also be a time for some average men to esscape their normal lifes and fantisies about them being the man in power as they can relate to the cast.

The thriller would reach American and some European audiences as it shows those countries as the goodies and heros, the middle easter hacker character is the bad man in the thriller so those coutnries wouldnt enjoy themselves being so negatively represented.

A way to attract women as a secondry audience will be by bring forward the importance of the two powerful women characters. The American's administrator is played by Alison this is putting women very high up in the rankings, second in comman. Other women will really like to watch this as it shows how women are being as powerful as men.

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

Looking back at when we did our preliminary task it seems like a very long time ago but it was only a few months. I think it feels so long because i have learnt so much since we first used the camera and Final Cut Pro.

When we were filming the preliminary task it just felt unorganised because we were so new to using the camera set up, where as when it was our Thriller filming day although we still hadnt used the camera large amounts but because we had planned what we were going to be doing, who with, at what time and where, the set up felt very structured and organised. Setting the camera up on its tripod with the muff and the lighting became fairly quick as we each had a different job to do and knew how to do each of them so we could switch around.

For the editing i found it quite hard at first because it was a very new concept to me and there was a lot to remember but after the prelim editing i found i knew the basics, and then when it came to editing our thriller we had longer on it obviously and Walter had been using Final Cut Pro for a few years so he could teach me some more interesting things to do.

I'm proud of what i learnt and feel confortable using the camera and all the technical things that go with it, and am able to experiment more in editing to create a good sequence.

Editing Tiles

For the first part of our title sequence where we have a montage of shots we have decided to put titles on top of the shots. Our title sequence could be called discrete as the titles are separate from the film and are edited differently.
As our theme is political/cyber we chose a fairly simple font. And the way we edited it in was by choosing a typewriter setting which made the letters each come up individually as is someone were typing them. This links and backs up our theme subtly helping the character get behind the movie.

we are following the conventional order of the names that come up in the sequence starting with :

1. the Production company - S.W.W.C. (the combination of our initials)
2. the Distribution company - Vertigo Films
3. a few of the main characters names - Roy Bickinson, Alison Winter and Ted Jackson
4. and then at the end we will create a high tech looking title for the name

Animatic and Storyboard

We created an animatic of our thriller by filming our storyboard and recording in the current script, this was done on iMovie on an Apple. Walter edited it together adding fades and cuts to make it seem more like the real thing would.



It was really helpful creating the animatic as it gave us a rough idea of what the title sequence could look like, as we saw this were able to make changes to impove it and we are still making chances within the editing.