Thriller trailers - spotting conventions

• What sort of narratives/themes are typical to thrillers?

• What enigmas are created/resolved?

• What mise-en-scene is typical?

• What sort of roles do actors/characters play?

• How are they represented?

Question 7

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

Since my preliminary task, I have certainly developed new media skills, including the ability to demonstrate more advanced filming and editing skills, as well as analysing them afterwards at a higher level. After watching the final product of my preliminary video, I found major errors and flaws came to light that I was unable to spot and rectify during the creation process. I had broken the 180 degree rule twice, being unable to establish which side of the room my two characters were on, confusing the audience watching somewhat. 

Also, I had a very limited range of shots simply because I had little understanding of the different type of shots at this point. My continuity wasn’t great, and there was a significant flaw in my attention to detail for each individual shot and how they worked with the shots immediately before and after. An example being a side on shot of me opening the door, which was followed by a separate shot from a different angle of me opening the door again, which disrupted the flow and stood out as a major editing error. 

Due to having limited knowledge of editing softwares such as Sony Vegas at the time, I had little ability to change the sound. This meant I had a poor balance between diegetic and non-diegetic sound, with my instrumental soundtrack drowning out the brief diegetic voice passages in my actual video. I had no titles in my preliminary, which is something I learned provides a professional seeming appeal to openings when these were included in the final production. There was an example of shot reverse-shot and match on action in my preliminary, however they didn’t work at all fluidly, and due to my limited time I had to film, they could not be reshot. This wasn’t a problem for the final thriller, which we had a number of hours to complete, meaning mistakes could either be re-filmed or edited out afterwards. I hadn’t created a significantly detailed storyboard or shotlist for my preliminary video, meaning that I struggled deciding which shots to create during the filming process. For our final project, we had a clear storyboard and a detailed shotlist which we constantly referred to when filming. An obvious factor that proved detrimental to the success and quality of my preliminary was the filming itself. I used an iPad and had the video filmed only by hand. This meant that the footage wasn’t entirely clear, and was also quite shaky, which didn’t help the overall success of my video. For our actual thriller, we used much higher quality cameras (DSLR) and had tripods, which provided us with a much higher quality of footage. These cameras also held far more data and could store a lot more footage than my iPad, meaning we were able to film many repeats of the same shot to find the best one to use in our final production.

In terms of the success of our overall final production, I think it is clear that our various newly acquired media skills were demonstrated sufficiently. We had a varied range of shot types, and made sure not to break any continuity rules or the 180 rule. Our soundtrack was altered and edited a number of times in order to make it fit as well as to the overall product as possible. Having spent a lot of time understand the conventions of thrillers, especially mystery and psychological thrillers, we had a greater understand of who the target audience and demographics were for our type of thriller we were creating, meaning that we could focus on filming shots and editing techniques we knew would appeal to those who enjoy watching our chosen genre. Beforehand, for my preliminary, my thriller genre was very broad and wasn’t narrowed down, so I couldn’t study a particular genre very well, and I struggled on focusing on one type of thriller when trying to find out which shot types and editing techniques will most appeal to those watching my thriller. 

Question 6

Question 6 – ‘What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Initially, I used Youtube to research various different thriller openings we knew we could model our own thriller opening with including Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs, which we would later use to emulate editing and shot techniques so as to make our thriller opening appear as realistic as possible and in line with typical thriller conventions. 

 Artofthetitle.com was another helpful resource that allowed me to view various thriller openings and to understand how different genres of film utilised camera shots and editing techniques differently e.g. Action film opening often had faster paced shot changes and superimposed text to appeal to its target audience of choice. 

IMDB served as a helpful database that gave me greater awareness of what type of person enjoys each genre and what type of actors are often involved in mystery and psychological thriller films, as well as what gender. 

When searching for the correct demographics that would most suitably fit our product, BBFC.co.uk was incredibly useful, and served as a great tool for answering question 2 of this evaluation also. We were able to determine our chosen demographic age, gender and occupation/employment status which narrowed down our audience focus, meaning we could do a better job of catering to the wants and needs of those who are likely to want to watch a mystery/psychological thriller. BBFC.co.uk also allowed us to make a decision on which age rating our thriller would fit into, which we eventually decided on as 12. 

Poll Everywhere was a website which helped us determine which font type we should use for our superimposed titles in our final production, and this is a resource we could use in the future as a way of finding out which fonts, idents and soundtracks would be better suited for a specific genre.

I also looked at other real production companies including Lionsgate and Paramount Pictures to gain a greater understanding on the role of a production company in a film and which real life Production Company would be suitable for us to use for our thriller, which we decided on as being New Line Cinema. 

Viewing various Production Companies also meant we could study their idents and logos, which proved helpful for when we constructed our own company ident for our own Production Company named Spotlight Productions.

 Additionally my knowledge of how to use editing software certainly improved and advanced from my Preliminary task. For my Preliminary Task, I had used the editing program ‘iMovie’ for iPad which was relatively basic and easy to use, however you could go into no great detail when editing either video or sound, as well as merging the two together, i.e. merging diegetic and non-diegetic sound or synchronous and asynchronous sound. 

To create a one minute sound clip, a montage of voices which was an overlay of the instrumental soundtrack, I decided to use Sony Vegas. Despite having been relatively new to the program, I began to learn various processes including splitting sound and placing certain sounds above each other.
 My one major struggle using this program came when trying to figure out how to increase and decrease the speed and tempo of sound clips; however I eventually learned how to achieve this. Another part of media I learned from using and experiencing Sony Vegas was how to differentiate between sound and video files, and which type of file worked best with other programs. I had been trying to create my file as a .Veg file, however realised that this file type was not compatible with the sound editing program ‘Audacity’ that I was trying to transfer my clip to. I eventually learned that .mp3 and .mp4 are the best audio files to use when uploading sound files to different programs.

For the first time I had the experience of setting up and using advanced and technical camera equipment, including a Canon 1100D. 

Setting up tripods was also a crucial skill, as it enabled us to have steadier camera footage, as opposed to handheld footage. Tripods are useful for capturing long and establishing shots, something which I hadn’t used in my preliminary task. Editing wise, the detail in which we corrected and altered our final production’s video footage was of a far greater extent and detail than when I edited my preliminary video, which took about an hour. In this exercise I also learned about framing and what to focus on and specifically include in each individual shot, as well as to include a greater variation of shot types to keep the audience entertained. An example of how I advanced my knowledge of framing was from an over the shoulder shot that appears in the final cut video. We made sure to keep both characters in view at all times, but with the antagonist looming largely in the bottom left foreground, with the smaller figure of the protagonist In the background towards the centre of the shot. There were no problems with the weather when filming our thriller, and it in fact enhanced our shooting somewhat, with certain scenes benefitting from the lower sun due to it being early in the morning, which we made sure we captured and used in our final production video. Having not used many presentation website beforehand, using website such as Go Animate and Powtoon has given me a greater and wider range of interactive media options when creating and displaying work in an appealing style and manner.

Question 5

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

We made our opening appeal to our audience through various techniques including editing shots together in a cohesive and concise manner, with a subtle change of pace in certain parts inferring tension to the audience, who will be in the target age group of 15-30.  There are also various ways in which we managed to make our thriller opening appeal to our audience, with five shots being particularly vital to this process. The first shot is the opening shot which is faded in, showing the antagonist preparing for the attack on the child with various pieces of equipment. 

This shot immediately attracts our audience, as they immediately begin to see objects of potential danger and wonder what they are going to be used for and who they’re going to be used by. The shot pans across slowly, indicating that there are a lot of items that the viewer should take note of. The shot is also intentionally close enough to the table that the identity of the killer is concealed, meaning that the audience is almost having to analyse the items on the table to receive any kind of idea at all about who this man is and what his intentions are. This further heightens tension and suspense, and emulates the opening of the thriller Se7en, which features an opening including a desk and various tools and dangerous objects that symbolise death and violence. The second shot used that appealed to our audience the most was the panning long shot of the protagonist walking through the sunlight down a pathway with the wooded area in the background.

This shot clearly suggests to the viewer that the wooded area is where the character is headed, giving the audience some idea that the child is potentially in danger. The sunlight shining through and down on the girl as she walks down a pathway infers to the audience innocence and kindness, making it clear to the audience who the protagonist is. The third shot that greatly appeals to the audience is the over the shoulder shot in which the antagonist can be seen in the far left foreground watching the child desperately run away. 

This appeals to the audience as it instills a great sense of suspense, seeing as the audience at this point is not entirely sure what the antagonist’s plans for the girl are. His calm demeanour at this point is massively contrasting to that of the child, who is clearly panicked and confused. Displaying such contrasting emotions in one shot will clearly appeal to those who meet the target audience bracket, who will be expecting to see exciting and unique shots. Our target audience will also be old enough to understand the implied contrast in fortunes and emotions, despite their being no diegetic sound. The fourth shot of choice is that of the close up shot of the girl’s face after falling, which shows her panicked and muddied after falling, this shot is the first and only shot of the entire opening which clearly shows a character’s face. 

This gives the audience a small and very quick showing of what humungous terror and peril the protagonist is facing at this point. The fifth shot is the closeup final shot where the antagonist finally captures the girl and begins to attack her, which quickly cuts to black. 

Combined with the diegetic audio, this shot gives the audience a large contrast in emotion, as the audio states “we’re hoping and praying that will happen.” This audio is from the mother of the child, desperately hoping their child will return. While this is playing, it is clear to the audience that there is no hope for this to happen. This contrast will likely shock the audience, hugely increasing overall tension. Because of how short a time the shot lasts for, the audience cannot quite establish exactly what has happened and whether the girl is alive or not. This creates enigmas and replicates real thriller productions, which will often shorten the duration of certain shots in order to increase speed and drama.

According to our Vox Pop data, our audience found that the sound had dramatically improved and was more fitting to our thriller. Previously for our rough cut, we used a track with words, which wasn’t responded to well, as it seemed it proved distracting to the shots and the narrative. We substituted this with a purely instrumental soundtrack for our final cut, which was much better received. The montage of voice clips was also a positive implementation that wasn’t part of our rough cut also, on which the audience commented it made the video far more authentic sounding. However one person did comment that the usage of voice tracks ended up being too prevalent and repetitive, suggesting that they would work better with the track had they been sparser and more carefully placed. However, there were few other major improvements listed for us for our final cut compared to our rough cut, meaning according to our target audience we were relatively successful in appealing to them and that we have listened to the feedback given to us throughout the entire thriller opening creation process, and we have fulfilled the audience’s expectations of what a good thriller opening should be.

Previously mentioned thrillers such as The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en are similar to our production because in all three the antagonist remains concealed for a significant period of time through the use of close up shots. All three match the criteria for many successful mystery and psychological thrillers, as our thriller has a realistic setting that is relatable and familiar to the audience. 

Question 4

Question 4 – Who would be the audience for your media product?

We decided that the typical target age group for our thriller would be between the age of 15-30, a period of time in which people may spend more time viewing cinema and entertainment, and this is usually the age group for which most thriller films are catered for. There was no specific gender focus for our thriller, seeing as it features both a male and a female, with both roles easily being filled potentially by the opposite gender if we had wanted to do so. We studied BBFC (The British Board of Film Classification) as part of our thriller research, in order to find the age rating appropriate for our thriller.

 Despite the target audience being age 15-30, it is highly possible that our film could be rated 12, since it only shows very limited, non graphic violence, and for the most part only infers mental and physically pain, e.g. showing the killer preparing weapons rather than using them. At 15, sexual activity can be displayed, whereas this is very limited at a 12 rating, and can only really be referenced rather than displayed. Our thriller contains no sexual references, so it can easily be passed off at age 12 in this category. The actual scene of killing itself only lasts a couple of seconds, not in enough detail for people in the audience to watch, analyse and potentially copying, something which may be the case during a long torture scene shown during 18 rated films. We considered whether our thriller would fit into the PG category, since not all PG films are specifically aimed at children. The extensive shots showing the killer preparing weaponry is something however that would not likely be condoned for a PG rating. However, supporting the use of a PG rating in our thriller, the scenes of violence that do occur are of a short, non-gruesome nature with little focus on pain and injury.

Despite having a rating of 12, our target audience still remains at 15-30, seeing as younger children and teenagers may not understand the subtle implementation of mental torment and the factor of isolation. Younger children may also be more interested in thrillers with more action, which is something that is clearly limited in our thriller. Having a rating of 12 however makes the film more accessible to a larger and broader group of people. 

In order to find a specific age that would have the greatest interest in our thriller for our audience profile, we created a Vox Pop video identifying their thriller genre of preference. 

We also filmed people’s reaction within the 15-30 age groups to take their reaction to the opening and their overall interest. 

Clearly, a typical age for our thriller would be about 17 or 18, but of either gender. Someone of this age is someone who regularly uses social media, sharing pictures and informing people of their daily lives. This type of person is fairly open and outgoing, and is willing to spend a lot of time frequenting cinemas to watch the latest films, including thriller and horror films. They may also listen to various types of music at this point to experiment due to being the most adventurous age type, so they will likely have no problems listening to the instrumental soundtrack in our thriller. They will be of a mature enough age to understand and sympathise the perils of which the child finds themselves in. People of this age may often look after or take to school younger siblings of the same age as our protagonist, so can relate to children of the age of around 11 or 12 personally. They are also old enough to understand inferred meanings and implications of such things as the clothing choices and the decision to use woods as a setting, as well as being able to understand the underlying feelings of isolation and inevitability for the protagonist.  As aforementioned, there is no specific gender, race or ethnicity that is focused on, seeing as our thriller does not intentionally focus on any of these groups specifically. This age group often discusses TV programmes, and are more likely to be watching thriller movies more frequently than at any other age, since 17 and 18 is an age when all thriller films are becoming accessible to you to watch for the first time, so they feel excitement and try to watch as many as they can. This age group is also more willing to experiment with films, rather than focusing on one particular genre like much younger or older age groups might do. This means that our film is much more likely to have a greater exposure with this age group than with any other, seeing as this film will be viewed by anyone in this age group who are willing to watch films.

Demographically, our film is probably aimed, based off our previous research on film demographics, at groups D and E. Group D because these people are likely part-time workers, and have the money available to frequently visit cinemas and to buy and watch TV channels. Group E is selected as this group defines ‘students’ and employed people, who will likely have the free leisure time needed in order to often go to cinemas to watch films. Group E also contains a wide variety of people who may be willing to experiment or take on new challenges, and will likely watch our thriller even if it is not the film genre they usually try and watch. This means that for our target audience profile, I have chosen a male and a female of age 17 or 18, with a demographic of either D or E (unemployed/student or part-time skilled worker) that is open to challenges and adventure, so is willing to enjoy any time of film, no matter the genre, and has plenty of leisure time so as to go and watch the film with other people.

Question 3

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

 Our production company name is 'Spotlight Productions', which contains the moving

 image of a stage light panning upwards. 

Including a moving object serves the purpose of obtaining the audience's attention. The decision to include a prop or spotlight as the object of choice was made as it is something usually associated with film or production, immediately denoting to people who see the logo what type of company it is and its involvement in media. Inspiration for this ident was drawn from Pixar's famous lamplight animation, which has become the iconic marketing image of choice for the American company. 

Similarly to the Pixar ident, there is a blank background in our ident, which ultimately forces the viewer to alter their attention to the more concentrated foreground, meaning that both the company name and image will be more often seen and remembered. Warner Bros. is another example which demonstrates the tactic of displaying nothing focused or important in the background, necessitating the viewer to recognise the ident image displayed.­

 In production company idents such as Paramount Pictures, typography is used in order to make sure that the key focus in the shot is the name of the company, e.g. using the golden mean so as to place the name of the company on the area of the screen, as opposed to placing it nearer the bottom or towards the side. Paramount places their title at the top of a mountain peak, the highest and most distinguished point on the screen, with a significant amount of lighting on top of this. Clouds are utilised to make the surrounding area less interesting to the viewer. 

A production company is the largest and most prominent group in a movie or film project, and they are often tasked with being the main fundraisers for the film being created. They oversee the majority of what is placed in a film and are often owned by a film studio, however can be independent. The purpose of a production company is to garner funds for a filming project and is heavily involved in many processes including budgeting, scheduling, scripting and marketing as well as distribution and post-production work. Choices of actors and directors will be based on the type of movie being created and the budget given to create the production. Overall sales of a certain production will be an influencing factor for production companies in setting a budget for their next production.

For our distributor, we considered using various companies, including larger companies that are notable for producing and distributing thrillers including Paramount Pictures and Hollywood Pictures. Hollywood pictures, the production company for the movie ‘The Sixth Sense’, is based in California. This location would be beneficial for creating a thriller as there are many film studios and sets in the surrounding area that would be easily accessible. While this company was a division of Disney, it had a history for producing relatively low key thriller and action movies. But due to its ties with Disney, the company had a large financial backing, which means there would be little in terms of limitations for a budget for a thriller film.

 Eventually, we decided to choose New Line Cinema as our film producer and distributor. 

New Line is an American film studio founded in 1967, and has distributed and produced various thriller movies, most notably Se7en. The company is now merged with Warner Bros, and still co-produces films with the company today. Combining the companies’ previous endeavours with incredibly successful psychological thrillers we have emulated such as Se7en and with the company now being owned by the highly established Warner Bros, which also produces thriller films, we felt that New Line would be appropriate both topically and financially. Even without our thriller receiving additional funding through New Line’s connection with Warner Bros, the company has a successful history of turning smaller budgets into massive gains from the box office. Se7en’s initial budget was $33 million, which became $327.3 million grossed from the box office.

Our production company is placed before the opening of the thriller, which is something almost always replicated in most films in general. We decided to have the director as the first title during the film, seeing as the role is arguably the most important individual role. This is followed by the actor names and then the various production roles including casting, editing and sound. The actual title of the film comes towards the end of the opening, which was deliberately to create enigmas and to support the conventions of typical thrillers, including Se7en, which places the title towards the end of the opening.

Films similar to our production ‘Missing’ that were distributed by New Line Cinema include The Conjuring and Se7en, both of which include similar settings and narratives. Despite The Conjuring being a horror film by definition, the audience viewing would be of a similar target age group, so watchers of that film would likely be interested in watching our production.

Question 2

Question 2 – How does your media product represent particular social groups?

There are two main characters in our thriller, the first being the adult antagonist, who little is revealed about during the opening, other than what their intentions are. While the antagonist is crucial in advancing the thriller, arguably the more important character is the child, who is portrayed as the innocent victim that sparks the rest of the film’s events. By portraying our protagonist as a victim, the audience is compelled as to who will become the new protagonist following the killing, creating enigmas almost immediately in our production. We used a child for the protagonist role, as it allows the target audience of young adults, who may have young children of their own, to relate to the events happening in the film, which creates more emotion and suspense. The audience may have heard of such kidnappings and child murders occurring elsewhere, and actually seeing it physically play out on a screen enhances emotion. For the role of a child, we made sure to select a specific age and gender to suit the role. The age of the child was 12, and was a girl. Female children are stereotypically seen as more vulnerable and frightened, and the age of the child is just old enough for them to be aware of the true danger of the situation they find themselves in. The character wears typical school children’s clothes; commonly worn by nearly all children of the same age, which serves the purpose of appearing no different to any other child, and that it could be any child in this situation, including the audience’s own children that go to school, wearing similar uniforms. School uniforms also act as a flashback to the viewer of a time of purity and innocence, stimulating emotion even further in our target audience.

For our antagonist, the decision was made to have a young adult male, which was made because many of the target audience may be of the same age as the antagonist, further allowing them to relate to our thriller. The character wears all black clothing to connote danger.  We made sure to make the clothing of the antagonist obvious by having it very visible during the few shots he appears. Intentionally, the focus is on the character’s clothing rather than their face. 

This forces the audience to recognise the character’s appearances, making it obvious the type of character they are to be and who the antagonist in the film is. Leaving out the character’s face means the audience cannot focus on an identity, but only the fact that we have an antagonist present in the thriller. This allows the audience to recognise the antagonist’s presence when he appears later in the film, but his identity will still remain hidden, further shrouding our thriller in mystery and enigma. To achieve this, we replicated once again the thriller Se7en, in which the antagonist’s face is not revealed, yet it is made obvious through editing, the shots and the sound that there is in fact an antagonist on the screen.

We used various unique and different camera shots throughout our opening to infer various levels of danger. The initial opening shots, which depict a dual narrative, serves the purpose of creating a sense of foreboding, as the camera switches from the killer plotting to the child walking in a long, panning shot, to establish the location and to infer that this location is where the act of murder will commence. 

Wooded areas are usually seen as potentially dangerous, since you are mostly out of sight and cannot be heard, so by including as the very first shot of the child, the audience are immediately privy to the information that the child is in significant danger. Following this, close up shots of both the protagonist and antagonist’s feet are displayed, to create a sense of inevitable peril for the child, while still shrouding the identity of both characters.

 While it is indicated that both characters are in the same place, we only find this out to be true through an over the shoulder shot, showing the antagonist standing and viewing the child running away. This shot portrays to the audience the hopelessness of the protagonist’s situation, as by standing still and not chasing after the child, it is denoted that the antagonist has the situation well under control, and is calm.

 Having the child running further deeper into the darker woods rather than away from it was the intentional use of colour symbolism in our shots. Earlier, in the tracking shot of the child, the sun is shining brightly over the child, whereas in the over the shoulder shot, it is clear that the gap where the sun can shine through the wood is narrowing, suggesting a climax, creating tension for the audience. In this same over the shoulder shot, the almost parallel line of trees connotes that the protagonist is trapped, with only one pathway to follow. Having the child running in this shot suggests panic and disorientation, which is supported in later shots. This is a stark comparison to the calm demeanour of the antagonist, whose body language in the few shots shown of him remains relaxed throughout. 
Another shot suggesting vulnerability and the inevitable demise of the protagonist is the perspective shot, which shows a distorted vision suggesting panic and fear. This suggests not only panic but also a physical incapability to continue on running away, thus further suggesting that her demise is closing.

 This sense is supported by a following close up shot of the girl’s face, which is bruised and muddied. This shot is the first detailed shot depicting true fear, allowing the audience to clearly understand that the child’s chances of escape are almost hopeless, yet tension still remains seeing as the audience does not yet know how close to the child the antagonist is.

Make-up wise, the only significant make-up used in our thriller opening was the creation of the child’s muddy face after falling down. This was used to suggest to the audience the desperation of the situation, and to emphasise the pain the child would be feeling at this point both physically and mentally. The use of a wood as the primary location serves the purpose of creating an isolated area in which both the protagonist and antagonist will be completely alone. Due to the secluded and sheltered nature of woods and forests, it is easily conceivable to the audience that the child could indeed become lost, which keeps with our theme of remaining realistic in our thriller. Woods themselves are quite dangerous in nature, meaning that the inability for the girl to find an escape is also completely conceivable, as many areas are blocked off due to large branches or fallen trees.

Characters similar to our protagonist can be used as both a protagonist and antagonist. There are various examples of young girls used for both reasons in thriller films. A good example of a child at a very similar age used as an innocent protagonist is ‘Rachel Ferrier’ played by Dakota Fanning in the action/sci-fi thriller ‘War of the Worlds’. Her character is often focused on with close up shots to display showings of emotion, distress and panic throughout the film, and her clothing is also very casual and commonly seen worn by many children.

However there are certainly examples when the portrayal of innocent looking children can be used to force the audience to let their guard down, only to be surprised when it is revealed that the character is actually antagonistic. A perfect example of this is the ‘Grady Daughters’ in the 1980 horror/thriller The Shining. The two young girls are wearing innocent appearing matching dresses of a soft blue colour, with pink ribbon tied around their waists. It is only later understood that these two children haunt the house after being murdered by their father in the building.

Using innocent-seeming children can provide the perfect twist to create suspense and drama in certain situations.