Alone? Analysis.

Alone? Analysis.

My opening scene for our film ‘Alone?’ employs a variety of different conventions to which a real thriller film usually contains. We employed the use of enigma codes in creating tension and making our audience want to know more by use of questions. The main questions that continually appear are similar to the thriller film ‘Se7evn’ as the audience are left to ask ‘who is the murderer?’, ‘why is he doing this?’, ‘why go after the girl?’ and ‘who is the victim?’ These questions are raised because of the tense atmosphere that we created using moments like lights flicking on and off and knocking on doors, the audience need to know the answers to these questions to be able to fully understand what’s happening. We also looked at the use of a ‘damsel-in-distress’ woman character to remain faithful to the conventions of a thriller film. Our victim was a young woman getting ready to go out with some friends, a typical thriller convention scenario, taking an ordinary place a making it extraordinary with excitement and violence. Our group also decided to employ partial vision within our opening sequence so we created the ‘killer’ and made sure that his face was kept hidden throughout, this created a lot of tension as the audience felt the need to know who he was and what he looked like. The character types we chose were very similar to that of the characters in the film ‘Hannibal Rising’ the male figures were the ‘villains’ and the female figure was the ‘victim’. Thus, our film mirrored that of a real thriller films as it had similar characters.

The way the woman in our sequence was presented was very stereotypically ‘damsel-in-distress’ like, because the victim of the story was a ‘defenceless’, ‘scared’ woman and the dominant figure was the male killer and this shows a stereotypical view on men and woman, unlike the newest version of King Kong where the woman character is a lot more dominant in her role. My film also presents upper class people in a different way than normal; it shows a more detached view on the upper class society. What goes on in a ‘perfect’ household is never really seen from the outside; however, later on in my film this presents itself through a violent father and a mother who doesn’t care.

I believe that the kind of media institution that would distribute my film would be the likes of Hollywood’s subsiding company like Fox Searchlight as they specialise in the lower budget films like my own and they are used to producing similar films being closely linked to Hollywood studios. I also believe that a good way to distribute my film would be through the likes of Youtube as it reaches a wide range of audience and I could get my family and friends to send on the link of my movie and get lots of new people to watch it, and if it is liked then people will give great feedback and it may eventually get picked up by the bigger labels.

As a group we decided that our thriller film would have a 15 certificate because of the adult themes within. Our film is not suitable for children under the age of 15. Our film was aimed at both male and female audiences as there are no references to inequality or diversity on the topics of sex and gender.

We attracted our audience by, firstly creating a questionnaire for people around college and work to fill in for us, we then collected all the data we sat down and went through it together and picked out the main things that kept cropping up and tried to incorporate everything that the audience wanted in our film. They wanted an ambiguous, one word title and we came up with ‘Alone?’ the audience told us that they wanted to be put on the edge of their seats and we created a tense atmosphere but not giving too much away, therefore making them feel ‘on the edge of their seats’ and they also wanted to be able to work out puzzles for themselves and we helped them achieve this by keeping our opening sequence easy to follow but with many leading questions to be answered and they will only ever be answered if you sit and watch the whole film, this was the intended effects as it made our audience want to know the rest of the film and how everything plays out we did this by creating a sense of mystery and tension in the opening scene and the feedback that we received like for example when we asked people to tell us three words to describe our film and the majority of them said ‘tense’, ‘mysterious’ and scary’ this proved to us that we achieved the intended effect. We created mystery by using the conventions of a thriller film by concealing the killers face and keeping him hidden from view. The audience are left on the edge of their seats. The target audience for our thriller were 15 years and older and we stuck to that certificate with the fact that there was barely any swearing and the violence was minimal and was purely based on tension and events that might happen rather than creating a gory, violent opening scene, we wanted the audience to want to watch more and we believed that bringing in too much swearing and gore would have been too much for our target audience to handle too quickly and we thought that our audience would prefer our ways of building up to a climactic moment and ask questions later. We also kept our setting realistic, its a typical scenario for any young teenagers able to go out and have a good time so we stuck with the idea of keeping our setting as realistic as possible as we believed it would reel in our target audience and appeal to a wider range of people.

During this course I have learnt so much about the technology involved in constructing this opening scene to a thriller film. I learnt to use the camera and all its different features like for example the pull focus shot, even though we never incorporated any pull focus shot in our sequence it really helped me familiarise myself with the camera and use it successfully when I learnt these harder to achieve shots and for a first try I think it was pretty successful. The many different angles and types of shots were significant in creating a good, professional type of scene and the use of the 180 degree rule was something that we practised but could have done a little better as we learnt after filming and during the editing process when we found that we hadn’t successfully pulled off the 180 degree rule. I also learnt how important the use of a tripod is and how it can help get the angles and heights that you need, it also ensures you get the best possible, steady shot and helps guide the tracking shots so they are smooth and easy to do.

Learning how to use Adobe Premiere properly has been of real importance in the construction of our project. The use of the effects fade and dissolve really helped in construction process as it clearly helped convey the passage of time in the sequence and without it we wouldn’t have been able to achieve that intended look and it may have confused the audience when watching, it helped link shots together and made it flow continually. I also learned how important the use of non-linear editing is in making a film as it let my group and I come back to and add to our project if we weren’t fully satisfied, this was quite obviously the case with our sequence as we missed out shots and added ones that suit the sequence better.

Looking back at my preliminary task I have learnt so much since then and I have progressed significantly. I have learnt just how important it is to work as a team and to have good communication within my group. However, we also learnt that handing out significant jobs for us each to do get the job done quicker and was much more effective, it will only work successfully if you have good communication between group members. My group and I kept in touch via email and text and if one person needed help then we were just one text away and always willing to help. The blogging process really helped with the outcome as it helped me organise my thoughts and our progress as a group and I knew exactly what I had to do next as it made me keep everything in order.

Conclusively, I think that my thriller film was quite original and was as successful as we could have made it considering it was our first proper film. We met the codes and conventions of a typical thriller film that we had learned prior to creating our own thriller opening scene. Our sequence took into account the audience research that we had collected, again, prior to creating the sequence and it met most of the audience preferences.

Our final piece:

Here is the youtube version of the final edit of our Thriller film opening sequence:



Starring:
Break-out actress Danielle Platt.
Supporting actor Ryan Myers.

Audience feedback

Audience Feedback

After completing our thriller film, it was then shown to the rest of our media class so that we could get some audience feedback on the opening of our film. Some of the positive comments that we got included things to do with music – how it went well with what was going on, the changing of camera angles – the use of POV shots and the shot in the mirror, the way in which we incorporated a news scene into our film – which we filmed separately and then added in and the storyline – which was said to be eerie and attention grabbing, making the audience want to know more. The main negative comments that were given about our film were that some of the camera angles were slightly shaky – which gave it a slightly less professional look at some points, the fact that we should have shown the news report – we did have a shot of this but decided to cut it for some reason, and that there was too much dialogue - quite often there is no dialogue in a thriller opening but there was a few lines in ours. Most of the negative comments reflect people’s personal choices, i.e. some people don’t like to have dialogue in a thriller opening. These sorts of points would be taken into consideration if we were to make our opening again. Overall there was more positive feedback than negative feedback for our film opening, and as part of the audience feedback questionnaire that they were given each person was asked to rate how appealing the title of the film was, and then how appealing the opening was a whole. Our audience gave the title of our film 4.3/5 for appeal ability. And they gave our thriller opening as a whole a score of 4.43/5 for appeal ability. These are very good scores, above average. This means that our audience liked our film, even though there were still a few things which could have been done to improve it. We were very pleased with the scores from our audience feedback, and we also feel that we produced a good thriller opening sequence.

My analysis of finished product.

I am now going to complete an analysis of my finished piece, just like I did with the other thriller films I looked at.

Narrative structure:
The opening to my thriller film follows a linear storyline; it shows a female character going through the process of getting ready to go out, then she comes downstairs and is watching TV when she hears a knock at the door. This makes her feel uneasy as she goes to answer the door. She steps out of the front door to look who was knocking, but no one is there. She goes back inside, and goes into the living room, where she is attacked.

Thriller codes and Conventions:
We use lots of enigma codes in our film: Who is the girl? What is it about the news broadcast that alarms her? Who is Edward Burns? Does the girl know him? Who attacks her? Is it Edward? These enigma codes were used in order to build up tension and suspense within the film Another common convention that is used is the fact that the victim is female, this is often what happens in thrillers to connote that the female sex is weak.

Camerawork:
In this film, there are a variety of shots used. Mid shots show the action from a normal perspective. Tracking shots follow a set of feet at the beginning of the scene; the shot follows the feet from left to right. Panning shots follow the girl as she moves down the stairs and then down the hallway to open the doorway. The camera zooms in on the female character, after she has hurriedly switched off the news report, to show the scared emotion on her face. After she goes outside, we get a point of view shot from someone running down the hall of the house and into the living room. This shot is done using a handheld camera instead of one on a tripod in order to create a more wobbly, amateur effect as the person is running through the house. The final shot is a wide shot of the girl being attacked. This allows us to see everything that is going on during this part of the scene.

Mise En Scene:
The costumes in this scene are very casual, the girl is wearing, casual clothes as she is going out, we see at the end that the killer is dressed in black, with their face covered. Lighting in this sequence is very natural; it is typical for the domestic setting which the sequence is set in. The two actors in this sequence are the teenage girl, and the killer. We do not know the identity of the killer, but we assume he is male. The female teenage girl is a stereotypical thriller victim, young, alone vulnerable and weak. Make up is natural in this sequence. The main props that we see in the sequence are the TV, which is playing the news report, and the weapon which the killer uses to attack his victim. The setting is domestic, in a home environment which is often thought of as a safe place in thriller film, but as this sequence proves it is not.

Sound:
The track that runs all the way through this sequence, is a bassy instrumental sound which helps to build up tension throughout the sequence. The news report can be heard in one part of the scene, although it is cut off when the female character is alarmed and then the bassy soundtrack comes through building up the tension once again. As the victim is attacked, the title of the film comes in with a loud clanging noise, which further emphasises the tension which has been built up in the opening sequence.

Editing:
Continuity editing is used throughout the sequence in order to build up a continuous picture of the action as it happens.

Graphics:
The graphics which are used in this sequence are white coloured font in a typewriter style. The credits are in the following order, and appear over the start of the sequence: Actors, music, editing, cinematography, producer and director. After these credits have appeared on the screen, the sequence runs through to the end and after the final shot, the end credit comes in, it is the title of the film Alone? This is the same white typewriter style font on a black background, after appearing on the screen the title then flickers away slowly until we are left with a blank screen.

Storyboard

Below is a stroyboard of the shots we took:

Shot List

Below is the shot list for the opening sequence of Alone?:

Location Sheet

This is the location that we are going to be using for filming. It is Lauren's House which is located in Warrington. We will be using various rooms within this house including the bathroom, the stairs and hallway, and the living room.