Analysis of completed thriller section 12

Within our media group, we were asked to create an opening scene for a thriller film. My group consisted of Sophie Robinson, Megan Lyons and Natalie Worthington. For our film to be successfull we needed to understand what a thriller film was, and what it required for it to be good, therefore we did some research. We watched and analysed several thriller openings such as Jaws and American Psycho. From this we learnt that a thriller opening shouldn't give too much information away but give just enough to persuade the audience to carry on watching. We commented on the types of music that were used and the mise-en-scene as well as the on-screen graphics which we learnt to be quite simple. For our storyline we looked through newspapers and on the internet for something true to base our film around. The realism of the storyline adds to the genre of the thriller as it can make the audience empathise with real life situations.

Before we could decide on our storyline, we needed a public analysis on what they thought would make a good thriller film and the types of film they enjoy the most, thus we created a questionnaire. We distributed 40 questionnaires to 40 different people over the age of 16. With the information in the answers we received, we then could brainstorm some ideas for our thriller film, thus creating the storyboards and script etc. In order to create our thriller opening, we needed to find people who were willing to give up their time to participate in the making of the film and act for us.

After researching the codes and conventions of a thriller film, we came up with the idea of using a knife in the opening to create a 'scary' atmosphere, because from the research we uncovered we realised that death was a popular choice of genre amongst our questionnaire answers. Also after studying other thriller films and watching their openings, we realised that something which connotes death is often used to create the 'thriller' atmosphere. We also used Pascal Bonitzers' idea of partial vision when we see the knife but not the person to whom the knife belongs. The use of dramatic music also adds to the thriller genre.

We received quite positive feedback from the audience (class), for example the use of the blood on the hand was effective as it is typical thriller 'behaviour'. Also the camera shots when Anna was putting on her coat, and the separate shots at different parts of her body made it more interesting to watch as opposed to just having a full body shot. Negative response was expected with the props, for example the blood was not as realistic as it may have been. Also the tracking shot was penalised as it wasn't as smooth as it should've been, so taking this into consideration I can then improve these on my next film making attempt.

I think our film fulfilled a thrillers expectations as it involved murder, but the storyline could've been improved as well as the script. Our films main theme was jealousy, which I believed was a good theme as it perhaps could be something a lot of people can relate to, but we had to exxagerate the jealousy for it then to turn to murder. The basic idea for the film was good.
We chose to use a male killer in our sequence as it was typical of a thriller, and also use weapons such as knives and blood for props.

Within our film we chose to represent women as vulnerable and the men as the obsessive type, we did this because it reflected real life situations as women tend to be more vulnerable than men. We chose the people we did to star in it because we felt that they looked appropriate for the particular character they were representing. One person does die in our sequence, and it happens to be a male. This tells us that this person was perhaps in a vulnerable situation and done something which motivated someone to kill them.

In my opinion, I believe our film is not quite up to the standard of the cinema institution and would therefore end up being shown on ITV for example, as they tend to provide the public with dramas. I do not think the idea is creative enough or unique enough to be shown in the cinemas so next time I am creating a film, on order for it to be even more successful I would need to thing of a more imaginative idea. The pros of an unscreen distribution is that it would cost less money to run but the cons of not having it in the cinema are that it would not be as popular, and not make as much money.

The main target audience for our film I think is women, as it has a hint of romance which appeals more to the female audience. The certificate we gave for our film was a '15' as it involved violence. I think the film has potential to appeal to people instead of women as men could also enjoy the violence side to it.

We knew that the elements of our film would appeal to the target audience because of our questionnaire. Through our questionnaire we discovered that the main interest of people was violence and sex, therefore we chose to use both in our film. We wanted to make our audience feel uncomfortable at times and perhaps scared.

Making the film involved me using equipment and software that i have never used in such detail before. For example, the use of the cameras and Adobe Premier Player which helped us to add graphics to our film and allowed us to add a soundtrack but it also created a problem for us whilst editing. Although it did cause problems for us, it made our film appear more professional. We unfortunately lost some our of shots somehow and found it difficult to get them back together again, but we managed to solve the problem by keeping the files together in one folder. The cameras again were quite difficult to use, and the audience picked up on this when in one particular scene there are some 'jerky' shots. Feedback from the audience was that "the graphics and the soundtrack were perfect". We did have a problem with sound during the editing as we lost volume in a few shots. Unfortunatly we were unable to fix this as we just could not understand why it happened and the computer prohibited us from solving it.

I feel my knowledge of filmmaking has improved since our preliminary task (walking through the door). I am now more comfortable using the camera and I can now edit films more confidently and add graphics to certain shots with ease. Also my ideas I feel have developped. Next time I create a film, I would spend more time coming up with a more creative idea and spend more time editing the film so it looked more professional.