Evaluation

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

‘You’re My Friend Now’ is a horror thriller which follows the conventions and codes of the hybrid genre. It is similar to Amusement (2008) which is also a horror thriller about a psychopathic stalker who’s dressed like a clown, targeting young girls due to a grudge. However ‘You’re My Friend Now’ has a child murderer (Mary) who hides behind her carer (Jack) who is actually the ‘clown’ murderer.

The sequence opens up with the killer’s next victim chained and crying. This is an enigma code, typical of a professional thriller such as The Butterfly Effect (2004) which starts with the end of the film. The next shot is a point of view of Mary watching children playing at the park, and straight away the audience is second guessing her nature because of the way she is innocently watching them. Then her stare draws our audience to an image of horror. In extreme close up you can see the sheer evilness in her eyes portraying she has an unknown motive of being in the park and everything isn't what it seems to be. This links to the movie Orphan (2009), where Esther is not what she seems to be.

Eventually the true physical murderer (the clown) is shown and the murder setting is established. This is an isolated, long-forgotten room (similar to Saw 2004) where the truth is shown. However, here we have added the plot twist of a young female antagonist who does not actually commit the crimes herself. Instead, she gains pleasure by somehow getting her carer, Jack, to do it. As in many thrillers, confusing the audience like this creates suspense as everyone has to figure out what exactly is going on.

Our thriller also uses the typical convention of having a mass murderer on the loose, showing the warped sense of joy that is gotten from torturing and killing innocent victims. Mary pretends to be disabled, looking for attention and sympathy, and when it’s not received havoc erupts, connoted by “missing” reports all over the news. The audience start to realise what’s happening as the insanity continues with flashes of clowns faces creating increasing tension, as done in professional thrillers. The girl, at first, is perceived as being innocent and sweet due to her age of only being 7 years old, as well as the expressions she makes – her smile and happy mode of address. However there are hints of her evil nature. This is shown in the close ups of her strained eyes looking through the park gate and the accessories she is wearing such as the skull ring. Yet the audience don’t feel unduly threatened by her as she is clearly disabled (with a limp), causing them to pity her. This is similar to Kevin Spacey’s character, the villainous Keyser Söze, in The Usual Suspects (1995), where Spacey fools everyone into feeling sorry for him by making out he is a simple man with a debilitating limp, and therefore unable to commit any real crimes.

Another convention used in most thrillers is having the film title relate to the film in some way. As in Seven (1995) there are seven murders one for each deadly sin. In our thriller the title ‘You’re My Friend Now’ is quoted at the end of the sequence, which makes it more sinister as Mary goes around killing children that reject her in some way. Throughout the sequence we used a red font which stands out, reflecting the killings and goriness in the film. The titles of many thriller films convey the plot of the film like in the The Matrix (1999) when the font used has a sci-fi, high technology feel to it just like the story line of the film.

Many thrillers, such as in The butterfly Effect (2004), hint at what is about to come. In our thriller we used this convention by slowing down the shots as well as using Final Cut Pro’s “earthquake effect” to add a gradual sense of tension as the sequence unfolds. We also typically used close-ups to show the victim’s reactions to emphasise the agony and fear she felt. Also conventionally, our thriller uses many short takes to create tension and fear, creating a daunting atmosphere.

Used as parallel sound, the music in our thriller starts slowly to create a tense and eerie ambience. As the scene progresses, the mood becomes more frantic as the sharp, high notes start. This tells our audience something sinister is going to happen, making them aware that they need to pay close attention. This kind of slow, tension building music is a typical thriller convention. For example, in Panic Room (2002) very similar music is used to help build the threat to Meg Altman (played by Jodi Foster) and her daughter.

Regarding mise-en-scene, the first location we used was a recreation park, an everyday child’s attraction. It is a happy, playful location which contrasts strongly with our second  location, an isolated warehouse. This is where pure evil lurks, with mutilated toys adding a feeling of mystery and suspense. The lighting in the park was grey and dull which is a typical form of lighting for thriller films. The use of an isolated setting is typically used in thriller films.

Challenging conventions, of course, our sequence features a young girl as being the main antagonist, and as being superior to an older man. The focus is mainly on her, showing her point of view, suggesting she is the one that holds the power against the other characters. She also verbally controls what the older man, Jack, does.This is shown when she voices out her commands to Jack, "not that one, the other one".

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

Regarding gender, our thriller represents male and females to be the opposite compared to stereotypical views. Our male, Jack, is portrayed as weak, with little or no say in anything that happens. All he does is to take orders from Mary. Mary, aged 7, is portrayed as being superior to Jack, and even in control of his life. This is shown when Mary enters the warehouse and orders Jack around. For example, there is a close up of Mary nodding, encouraging Jack to move onto the next stage of her torturing. Mary is shown as getting her fun out of others’ suffering. However, contrasting to this representation, we have a victim who is also a young girl. She is shown more stereotypically, as a typically innocent (holding a teddy bear), powerless little girl (tied up with rope and cannot move). Regarding both gender and age representations, Jack is portrayed untypically as being subservient to the very much younger Mary.

In our thriller there are only two different ethnicities used; these being Asian and Black, portraying the way London has integrated over the years in acquiring a mixture of different races. Both girls are Black, representing the opposites of good and evil. Our Asian male is portrayed as being evil and weak. 

You can tell that the murderers are from the working / lower middle classes because although Mary is well-dressed and groomed, the area they live in has a run-down warehouse nearby. Mary is also portrayed as a devious, attention seeking, cheat as her limp is not for real. We can clearly see loses this as soon as she walks into the warehouse. The fact that she’d do anything to be noticed and felt sorry for indicates her evil side which isn't shown until she is truly inside the warehouse. Thus, she has two sides to her personality, the one she shows society and the one she becomes indoors.

Finally, we are stereotypically representing disability as connoting an evil character. There is a similar portrayal of disability in Orphan (2009), with the girl, Esther, having a mental disorder which makes her want to kill others who she feels are threats. Esther’s isolation also disables her. This is similar to our thriller which shows Mary secluding herself, ultimately pushing her to kill other children as “her friends now”, wanting revenge and to make herself feel better.

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

Our film is a low-budget British thriller.  It would therefore need production funding from UK organisations such as the UK Film Council (UKFC - ukfilmcouncil.org.uk). The UKFC have access to money from the National Lottery. Other institutions that fund particularly low budget films are the British Film Institution (BFI - bfi.org.uk) and the Princes Trust  (princes-trust.org.uk).
(NB: The UKFC is soon to close down due to coalition government cuts, with many of its functions being passed onto the BFI.)

You’re My Friend Now’ is therefore not likely to get distributed by a major Hollywood film studio like Paramount, 20^th Century Fox or Warner Bros as it is a very British film, featuring British characters and locations.

A UK Independent distributor such as Pathe or Momentum Pictures would be a more realistic choice for our thriller. Momentum Pictures "is one of the leading independent motion picture distributors in the UK and Ireland and releases approximately 20 theatrical films a year". This shows that this particular distributor would help create awareness and would be an influence as to whether our audience would want to watch the film. Momentum Pictures distributed one of the best recent British films, The Kings Speech (2010), winning four Oscars this year.

Warner Independent has also produced UK based low budget films that have turned into international successes, such as Slumdog Millionaire (2008). So, they might also be interested in our film. However, our film is set in contemporary, multi-cultural London, so I think the UKFC / BFI option would be our best bet.

Our Thriller could also be shown on television, for example as a Film4 release, similar to Kidulthood (2006). The BBFC rating for ‘You’re My Friend Now’ would be a 15 due to its goriness and violence, so it would have to go on after the 9 pm watershed. Our film could then be released on DVD / Blu-ray.

Traditionally, independent UK films find it difficult to get funding and many that do never get released. However, our production is quite unique, having a young black girl as the main villain. It also has all the thriller conventions that appeal to thriller audiences, emulating such box-office successes as Orphan (2009) and The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005).

Our thriller would also interest distributors as it will help raise the issue that child kidnapping is a major problem in our society today, with almost 500 children a year being abducted in the UK alone. An example of this issue is Madeline McCann (2007) and Sahil (2010). There would, of course, be the usual marketing opportunities to create awareness of the film – posters and trailers (particularly regarding an initial Film4 release) as well as  related merchandise such as T-shirts with ‘You’re My Friend Now’ on them.

4). Who would be the target audience of your media product?

Our target audience would be between the ages of 15 to 40 years old. This is because our audience research showed that the audience who are interested in thrillers were mostly between these ages. They all tended to watch thrillers with a BBFC rating of 15 giving examples of the audience favourite 15 rated thrillers as being Orphan (2009), the sequel of Butterfly Effect (2004-2009) and The Matrix (1999).

Our audience isn’t gender specific or ethnicity specific. However the ethnicity that would most likely be attracted is the Blacks and Asians, as our main characters have this ethnic background. However it would also appeal to wider audiences as it is based in London and uses British characters. Our targeted audience indicated that their preferred thriller sub-genre was horror thrillers, also revealing that it would be preferred if the opening should start with a clip that occurred later on it the film, supposedly the future. They also mentioned acting skills need to be of high quality in order for them to be able to watch the whole film. I think we achieved this as our audience feedback revealed that people thought the girl acted with a high quality, especially liking the way she portrayed her disability.

Audience feedback also indicated that we were onto a winner by having a young villain. They also preferred a suspense feeling to a thriller having an effect that makes them think about what would happen next, and again the general feedback was that we achieved this.

We also discovered that our target audience did not like storylines that were almost always similar but produced in a different way. In order to overcome this, we came up with an original idea, based around our main villain being a serial killing, young, black girl.

We decided on the BBFC rating of 15 because of our gory thriller plot and the use of a child instigating the murder. We avoided an 18 rating by making the violence implicit. There is also no nudity or use of strong language.

5). How did you attract / address your particular audience?

From our research evidence we found that the most popular thrillers were of the horror sub-genre, so we chose this for our production. Another big element that was preferred was using typical locations rather than ones which were exotic or unrealistic.  Accordingly, we used a park with a standard child’s play area, and a warehouse in a typical London location. This creates the effect that a kidnapping and murder can happen anywhere even in areas which may not be considered as threatening. We also used thriller conventions (as described in Q1) to create tension and suspense to put our audience on the edge of their seats. We also appealed to our audience through the characters.

Firstly, we positioned our audience to feel sympathy for Mary as she had a limp and seemingly had to play alone because of this – only watching other children in the park from behind a fence. At his stage, Mary seems very innocent, emphasized by her pink coat, which is an very girly colour, and cute hairstyle, with three ponytails. We then hinted at more sinister things to come with the big close up enigma coding of a skull ring on her finger, as well as the angry way she shakes the fence.

We also use enigma codes of Mary suddenly walking properly once she is inside the warehouse, shots of mutilated toys, and what appears to be legs sticking out from under a blood stained sheet. Such enigma coding builds tension and suspense, making the audience wonder what this is really all leading up to, drawing them further and further into the film. When we see the blood stained sheet has candles all around, this connotes a satanic sect, making the scene even more sinister. The male character (who is also seen as a frightening clown) is presented as the weaker sex, as he takes orders from a little girl. This aberrant behaviour would more than likely repulse both sexes in our audience, until they soon realise what these roles are leading up to, of course.  Here our plot twists and turns, rather like in Orphan (2009) where the young Esther initially comes across as all sweetness and light, by cleverly hiding the true nature that lies within. When entering the warehouse the audience is suddenly positioned to switch their sympathy for Mary to sympathise with her victims, because of  the gory scenes being revealed, using Mary’s point of view. In this way the audience is suddenly forced to step out of Mary’s shoes, repulsed by what they see.

Throughout the sequence rapid flashbacks, similar to the Butterfly Effect (2004) have been used. However, unlike in the Butterfly Effect, where they are used as problem solvers, we used them to create a sense of apprehension and to confuse the audience, making them want to watch more and see why these shots were included. The threatening slow motion shots of the garden shears used at the end of the clip also adds tension, making the audience even more horrified, as they realise what is about to happen. Thus we are meeting audience needs for lots of “thrills and spills” in horror thrillers.

The response received from our audience feedback was very good regarding all of the above points. They thought the camera work was good. The only problem we thought we might have here was that one of the hand held shots was unsteady.  However, the majority's view was that it was not noticeable, with the shaky flashbacks hiding it well. The sound track was clear and understandable, and created tension. This was aided by our sound editing where we lowered and heightened certain sounds so they weren’t overbearing against each other. Our feedback also indicated that the picture editing made the shots flow together continuously, with the use of the “shaky effect” flashbacks was liked strongly. Most of the audience said they liked the acting, particularly from the girl playing Mary, including how she walked with a limp. Our feedback also indicated people would continue watching such a film as they wanted to find out what would happen next.

So, overall, our feedback indicated that we were able to create an effective thriller sequence which got the story across to the audience in a very short space of time. All of our interviewees said that the clip met the high standards of a low budget film.

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

During our research and planning stage, we learnt how to use the ‘Google’ search engine more effectively by typing in specific search terms using quotes such as “horror thrillers” or “walking disabilities”. From this we were able to understand more about thriller forms and conventions as well as our subject matter. We researched films such as Seven, Butterfly Effect and The Usual Suspects. We also learnt about using graphs to analyse our target audience questionnaire responses.

During production and post production we learnt that using the camera and edit suite facilities requires a lot of patience as well as technical ability.

Throughout the filming process we used the Canon XM2, gradually learning how to use it more effectively. For example, at first we found it hard to perform a manual pull focus, but as we practiced this we managed to do this smoothly. The first shot is an example of the pull focus, when the victim is tied up sobbing. Another technical point we learnt about was to do with the exposure and how we could control options, such as which to use automatic or manual focus. Manually we could manipulate the mood of the scene; however using automatic gave the scene a sharp and more focused atmosphere. From this we learnt that for certain shots were the lighting was difficult we would need to use the manual focus to create a darker or brighter gradient, controlling the picture. We also learnt that capturing the action from many different angles helped create a more diverse sequence for the editing process, where we were able to feature a range of canted, normal and low shot angles. Another important learning point regarding the shooting process was the importance of checking the equipment before leaving college, as we found that our camera was not recording sound on location. We discovered this was our mistake with the controls, rather than a technical fault.

Before filming began, we learnt about the benefits of three-point and bounce lighting. However, for our main location interiors, we discovered that there was no electricity on supply, so we had to explore other avenues for lighting. By trial and error, we learnt how to best use natural lighting for effect by carefully selecting our camera angles. We found that shooting with the light gave a more natural feel, while shooting against it causing more of a silhouetted effect.

In post production we managed to apply a variety of shot transitions to our sequences – dissolves and fade in / out as well as straight cuts. We also learnt how to disguise some slightly unsteady hand held camerawork by adding Final Cut Pro’s “earthquake” effect to incorporate a shaky theme throughout the sequence. We were able to master the “distortion” tool to create an unnerving effect.

 Regarding the sound track, we discovered how to add news reporter voice-overs, and how to balance the different sound levels using the audio mixing tool. We also learnt how to use this tool to increase the sound level of the actress, as her voice was too low in comparison to the background music. In future we realised that we would need to use the more directional gun mic with a fishpole to get nearer to the artists and capture better dialogue on set.

Another learning point in post production was the use of titles and captions. We found out that professional thrillers use bold and substantial font sizes for their title sequences. However, we learnt was that if font sizes become too big it becomes over-crowded on screen.


Finally, when blogging we learnt how to create a blog with label clouds to neatly collate all the different stages of information required. For example we had label clouds for the different stages of the production as well as for our individual efforts. We also learnt how to link YouTube videos and pictures to the blog as well how to embed links to films or websites to help people see where our inspiration came from and to make it possible to link our final working piece for people to view.

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

The first thing we learnt in our progression from the Preliminary Exercise to the Thriller Production is that to produce a good end product you need to be organised, with the creation of a detailed Project Schedule covering each stage in the production process being essential to this. Following a schedule gave us confidence when we were on top of things, and a wakeup call whenever we started to slip behind.

In fact, looking back, we did very little research and planning for the Preliminary Exercise, making it much harder for us to film it. When it came to the actual Thriller production we improved our planning stage considerably by researching and evaluating professional thrillers as well as our target audience likes and dislikes. This enabled us to emulate professional thrillers more closely. For example, we learnt about the most effective camera angles for thriller films. We found close-ups were used a lot for reactions, as well as canted angles and isolated locations to add suspense. This helped us to formulate well-informed proposal ideas. Regarding the scripting process, we had already learnt how to create a simple script and storyboard for the Preliminary Exercise and this made it easier for us to adopt a more professional approach for the Thriller Opening Sequence. We realised that we needed to go into greater detail in the script, alongside developing sections on characterisation and production design. This extra input enabled us to produce a more professional end product in terms of aesthetic as well as technical quality.

Pull Focus (2)

Pull Focus (1)

Another thing we learnt from the Preliminary Exercise was that our filming continuity was not always up to standard, as we did not follow the 180 degree rule at one point. We learnt from this and made sure that we didn't make the same mistake in our Thriller. However during the Preliminary Exercise we tried out a variety of shots such a shot reverse shot and pull focuses which helped us gain experience and learn what to do and not do for the Thriller. We found the shot-reverse shots to be hard as we had to repeat all the same actions more than once for continuity purposes. However, we managed to improve a little on this technique for our Thriller production. We went through a similar progression with pull focus shots. One of our camera techniques, used only in the Thriller Production, was the use of hand held shots, so we had to perform these particular movements a number of times to ensure we did it correctly.

Regarding the mise-en-scene, we learnt more about the importance of using particular actors, locations, props and costumes to create the preferred reading, for example using an angelic-looking girl as our antagonist as a shock factor and using mutilated toys as enigma codes. We also learnt to be patient on set, particular with our two young girls.

The Thriller editing process was easier than in the Preliminary Exercise, as we were more familiar with Final Cut Pro. However, we had to learn how to overcome additional problems, for example running over length. Here we learned how to cut down shots using the blade tool. We could also see that many of our shots weren’t needed in the sequence, slowing down the sequence unnecessarily. Looking back at our Preliminary Exercise we learnt that there was little continuity to the sequence. Recognising this fault helped us as we knew we had to focus more on continuity, making our shots flow better. We also learnt about the effect of music in the Thriller Production, greatly enhancing our visuals. For our Preliminary Exercise we didn't use any sound, and it suffered as a result, looking quite dull in comparison.

In conclusion, at the end of the Thriller Production we found we were more confident in using the camera and editing equipment after all the experiences we had. We also learnt to gel more effectively as a team, with each of us pulling their weight as required, sharing the workload when one of our team members fell ill. We also developed our blogging skills during the Thriller Production. We feel that our end product was successful due to the very positive audience feedback we received. Our opening sequence has a near-professional element to it and all the experience gained will be useful when doing any other filming and editing work in the future.