Evalutation By Matt Fawdrey

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

What are the main conventions of a thriller?

• Anticipation

• Suspense / tension

• Antagonist

• Protagonist

• Mystery

Thriller films consist of all of the above as main conventions in which a protagonist, must face a problem to face as such often including the use of an antagonist. The main convention however being mystery, suspense and anticipation can often mean the opening of a thriller film is especially important as it creates those initial questions within the audience to build anticipation for the rest of the film and later being used to create tension and suspense. 

Within our Thriller we tried to incorporate as many of these conventions as possible and in this case we did manage to use all the conventions listed above, and we tried to intensify as many emotions we could that would have been created for by the audience; as in essence this gave our Thriller the Thrill. Below and pictured above is a nine frame sequence from our piece that I believe made our thriller unique, but also demonstrate these main thriller conventions

Here we have our opening shot of a simply alarm clock with a countdown; this shot began with a cut as we wanted to instantly put our audience into a state of almost shock to create tension within the audience instantly.We chose this clock in particular as it looked as if it had not been cared for much (seen by the dirt on the display); with however still being digital for the alarm function. Having a clock with this image gives questions immediately to the audience along the lines of who does this belong to and why are we seeing a countdown? This effectively builds suspense and is one of our key devices within the opening to build tension and suspense due to it constantly ticking away throughout the piece. Due to the lighting seen on the clock face we can assume this clock is being kept inside which then when shown with the other locations leads the audience to presume it is related to the man cutting newspapers however in the newspaper sections we can see no clock, creating mystery.


Similar techniques have been used in the openings of other thrillers; for example within the lincoln lawyer the audience is shown various abstract shots of a car and a city, this technique creates many questions with our audience in a unique way.

Another location within our film was that of a man cutting paper in the dark with great precision is shown due to the body language of the slow cutting; this again raises questions with our audience as to why he is performing this strange action. The sudden clipping noises of the scissors also help to create shock within the audience in comparison to the windy clips on top of a hill and that of the alarm clock. Although the sound of the scissors was diagetic, during the editing process we used software to enhance the cutting and tearing noises to enhance tension, this is called using Foley as it was done within the editing process.


We chose these shots to be as abstract as possible as we believed it would further enhance the feelings of mystery we were trying to create in the audience. This was copied within the shots of the man outside where he is also not revealing his identity except for the shots in which it is extremely distorted. Within our thriller opening we moved away from the mainstream thriller ideas of having a blatantly obvious protagonist and antagonist, instead we chose to keep it abstract and hidden to the audience but however suggest certain things by the use of lighting for example in which the cutting scenes are all incredibly under lit and dark suggesting an antagonist to the audience without directly showing it. One submission of feedback also commented on the lighting saying "have you manipulated the colour? looks like you have, if not the lighting is good." This was exactly the effect we were going for with our lighting in which is confuses the audience in such a way, it is definatly abstract and follows conventions of other thrillers from examples we can see from films such as the girl with the dragon tattoo (English version) with the opening of a letter scene.

Above we have a shot that brought some continuity to the outside location and the inside, we have a sudden stomp as someone jumps of a style into a field, the sudden crunch of the dirt hitting his boot is similar to that of the scissors/ripping in terms of effect and was also amplified within the editing process to give effect. The fact that we have a boot in a muddy field here is also a binary opposite to that of cutting with scissors inside, which to some extent again links the locations.


From the leg itself we can see this extreme close up of the boot; a clean looking boot however in a muddy setting. This was purposefully done as it gives questions to the audience as to why it is so clean if he is wearing boots, as due to them not being dirty they obviously don't belong to a rural character which creates the question to as why he is here , making him seem somewhat out of place. The boots are also obviously fit for purpose in this environment; showing the man obviously put thought and planning into this visit to a windy hillside with a balloon.


The location in this shot is still unknown creating further suspense, a typical convention in thrillers is that they also do not give the audience all the information at once and it is given to them over time, this creates that mysterious feeling presence in the audience.

The above shot is simply our titling showing our names and the films title portrayed on a fitting, red balloon. This shot was initially a long shot of the balloon however we edited to be a close up as it would then fit the screen better as the extra space was unnecessary we thought and wasn't in keeping with our other camera work quality.


We used the same style of balloon and used a sound bridge with wind to convey this is the same location as that of the man on the hill; we decided this way of titling would be better for the opening of the film than the standard black screen (see examples such as black swans opening) titling that is often seen as we believed this would be unique and not take the viewer away from the tension we created.


The font used for the titling of our names was chosen specifically to match that of the font on the balloon; a font that we believed would be in keeping with the thriller theme showing an almost horror like edge to it which conveys also dark themes shall be present throughout the theme, in keeping with our films plot. However, one viewer stated how he thought "the credits at the beginning don't quite fit in." I can understand this perspective as credit font can be extremely difficult to subject to the film with out detaching the viewer from the overall action, however I still believe this font was fitting for a thriller.

In the above shot we used a simple focus pull from some barbed wire, which we thought would be effective due to the obvious connotations of barbed wire onto focusing on the character with the balloon. Due to the shot being a long shot in addition to the barbed wire and being shown a large vista of the surrounding land we get a feeling of isolation from the character; and the lack of movement from him throughout this and other shots shows he is obviously in deep thought over something and the balloon must therefore be meaningful to him as it is the only prop in his possession.


We still keep the characters identity masked however in this shot the audience will start to further ask questions about him and build a mental image of him in their minds, we can now see he is wearing a long leather trench coat and has an beard that has not been trimmed in a while. This again suggests the character being abstract and isolated from mainstream culture and society as both the coat and beard are often not seen to be fashionable; again suggesting things about the character without confirmation to the audience.


However in comparison to the shots of the man cutting this character is in a well lit environment with blue sky above him, this suggests a protagonist to our audience; although the weird outfit and actions of the man confuse the audience building suspense and making the film more psychologically entertaining. A similar effect is used in the opening for the Disappearance of Alice Creed in which two characters are doing strange activity's and although it is clearly shown they shall become the main characters for the film, it is not suggested if they are protagonist or antagonist and the audience begins to ask further questions.

here we have another shot of the man on the hill, a worms eye view shot was used due to the fact we can use it to distort the image of the man so we can further let the audience build up a mental picture of the man without completely revealing him in this shot it again leads to the suspense in our opening as we slowly release the identity of the man. The distortion used within this shot is also so extreme that it conveys this character as being extremely unique and odd due to his activities, his costume and the location. We could have chosen to simply distort the mans image within editing however we decided against that due to continuity with the other shots.


One viewer even stated that he "liked how you never find out the identities." Him saying this shows me that I have obviously succeeded in concealing the characters identities by using simple distortion effects such as a worms eye view; knowing our audience is confused about their identities if exactly the effect we were going for and follows the main conventions of a thriller in building a question/mystery for the audience to think about.

Here we have an extreme long shot of the man on the hill portraying him in the center with a large vista of land below the hill shown to the audience. This furthers the idea of the character being isolated and alone. We also chose not to show the ground below him as we thought this would yet again further the idea of isolation.


The idea of him being alone and solitary is also amplified by us seeing small villages below him as he watches, this raises the question into the audience as why this is significant. The shot also helps further set the location with the audience as we can see more around him here.

In this extreme close up of the man alongside other shots towards the end of the piece we can see him pick out specific letters one by one creating questions for the audience as the significance of the man cutting slowly becoming apparent to the audience we controlled the narration here so that the audience is unsure on what the man is doing with him knowing, this is called restricted narration and is a common characteristic found within thrillers.

Eventually the letters formed the word dead in another shot and is faded between a shot of the word, the timer and the balloon flying away, one viewer stated how "the effects you have used are sophisticated, fade can often look tacky if used badly, but you've used it well and it just adds to the sequence." This comment shows that this ending technique of a fade was used well as it almost connects the three locations together creating questions for the audience to think about for the remainder of the film until they are finally connected.

 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Due to the very nature of our film this section cannot go into great detail due to us attempting to mask the identities as much as we could of our two main characters in an attempt to build suspense and mystery with our audience. However we do have some representations portrayed!

• Gender throughout the piece is shown by both characters being male, we chose this as a decision due to the fact that antagonists in thrillers are often male. Therefore we decided to choose them both to be male so that gender would not be a matter to the audience when it comes to them deciding on who our protagonist and antagonist are, it helped to build suspense. We can come to very few conclusions on how they both convey gender due to their lack of image in some respects, however this in turn is portraying their gender. For example if we made the person on the hill female the audience would jump to conclusions about her more quickly and would try and rationalize her behavior much more quickly, in comparison with the stereotypical male strange person doing odd activities which is often common in film.
• Both characters have little disclosed about their ages, however we tried to convey the man with the scissors as being slightly younger, mid 20's due to his hoody, a stereotypical item for a younger man to where with the hood up in comparison to an older man. The man on the hill is middle aged, as we can see from his beard, trench coat and boots (not often associated with the young).

• Social class is shown in the piece in very few ways. We chose the newspaper to be cut as the daily mail, a somewhat more civilized newspaper than in comparison the sun, this shows the man cutting the paper is somewhat well educated and is middle class, we can also presume him being middle class due to the stereotype of people who are not upper class wearing hoodies, something rarely seen in the upperclasses stereo typically. The man on the hill is also middle class, this is shown by his somewhat expensive leather boots and trench coat. Due to location not being shown particularly in either piece there is again little to deduce about the two characters and their class and status.

• The ethnicity of the two characters is white male, this was simply chosen due to the film being premiered in a predominantly white country where a characters ethnicity can lead to people jumping to conclusions about them due to media stereotyping, therefore we chose two white males as this is fairly neutral in England and the most common ethnicity.
• Little can be said about the characters sexual orientation due to the lack of speech or any particular signification in that case due to lack of information. However neither character from what we can see is stereotyped away from being anything but straight, due to this being the common sexuality.

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

For the distribution of my film following research I have decided BBC Films would be a good option to use a distributor. I believe the BBC will be a good option due to;

• BBC films have released many British, and often low budget/indie films meaning they shall have experience and are more willing to take on a smaller British film being made, previous examples have however been hits in the cinema and in homes, for example last year we had Brighton rock and my week with Marilyn in addition to lower budget films such as The awakening.
• BBC films as a company can easily advertise my film on television due to them showing so many programs themselves made through BBC in addition to the fact that they own several channels and often advertise their films in particular here.
• The release date for the film would be on a Wednesday to avoid competition from the high concept films in cinemas around the UK, whether or not this falls in half term is not so relevant to us due to our older audience that we are aiming for.

• The film would be released into mainstream cinemas first and avoid the small picture house, television or online release methods. This was chosen as it gives the film more potential to grow into a massive hit if the public enjoys it and we can then after our main release in cinema send the film onto go into smaller picture houses if they see demand, DVD, online and eventually a television release. Other options such as a spike Jonze style approach to releasing the film did seem tempting due to their high amount of almost free advertising through the use of social networking, however this strategy is too high risk for an unknown filmmaker and would therefore be inappropriate.
• other distributors could have been used, for example soda pictures or film 4 also seemed tempting to go by, however I believed BBC films would have more power to advertise in addition to having more knowledge in dealing with smaller film releases made by British film makers.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I chose the target audience for our film to be the 18-45 population, however the film shall not specifically be aimed towards the male market as many women also enjoy watching thrillers and it would be idiotic to try and purposefully cut ourselves off from a further audience by trying to fit a stereotype even though thrillers are often aimed towards men.


Based upon research this audience seems to best fit our film, for example here are some other similar thrillers with this particular audience in mind.

• The Lincoln lawyer, this film was a huge success and obtained $85 in the box office
• Taxi Driver, this older Thriller also had a similar audience to our film, also a huge success and a very influential Thriller film. Although this film was more aimed towards men, however this was not unusual seeing as it was released in the 1970's in america.
• Black Swan was another great Thriller film released last year, however the audience here appealed more to women due to the Ballet being a main plot feature, however this shows Thrillers obviously attract women and there audiences have changed since films such as Taxi Driver.

Due to our film having the two main characters also be in the 18-45 age range meaning it could become slightly more appealing to this audience. I chose not to have a female main character in the film due to the fact that this often sways the film to be more aimed at men and this is not the audience we want, we want to attract both genders equally. In addition to this having a female main character would as mentioned earlier lead the audience to presume more about the two main characters and jump to conclusions based upon typical thriller antagonist and protagonists, we did not want this.



The rating for the film shall be a 12, this coincides nicely with our target audience as they will all be over this age easily, it is unlikely anyone under this age would want to see our thriller anyway due to its adult themes and ideas in addition to the fact it is being aimed at older people. Any lower rating would have impaired our freedom allot and we would not be able to swear and you scenes of violence, however any higher would be unnecessary to the plot following the bbfc guidelines.

How did you attract/address your audience?

• Characters are of a similar age range to that of my target audience, the viewers can in some ways therefore relate to the characters. This will be especially effective as sometimes the two main characters will end up doing everyday things that the viewers of this age range will also perform, when they then see the darker deeds performed throughout the film they will start to question themselves and this will make the film more memorable for them.
• The movie starts with a very slow pace purposely which in theory could bore some of the younger viewers, however we believed due to the psychological impact of the actions performed on screen our slightly older audience would spend more time trying to figure out the mystery of the characters we created with camera shots and how we linked our three locations together whilst the pace is slow.
• Our use of sound also caters for this more mature audience due to the lack of dialogue in our opening, we believe our older audience will be again enjoy the psychological images we are creating with the lack of information portrayed to our audience though very simple methods such as the worms eye view shot or the lighting on the man. Our music is also very tense and increases suspense as the film progresses and without it all the shots would seem to have very little pace and meaning, the music helps us guide our audiences thoughts.

• Costume and props were also used throughout the piece to address our target audience, the man on the hill was wearing an old leather trench coat and boots with a clean haircut and a beard, features that would be unusual for someone under the age of 18 to wear; this further helped the audience relate to the characters. Our other main prop was the paper we used to cut up, as mentioned earlier we used the daily mail which has the ideal readership to link with our target audience having an even ratio of men and women and the majority of readers fit our age range.
• The narrative and plot is very psychological, therefore it is a psychological thriller. The film will also often have darker concepts that may not be overly obvious to a younger audience such as relationships with a child for example. However our target audience will more likely feel empathy in situations involving a parent and child relationship (The man with the balloon

•  is grieving a child, later revealed in the film), in addition to this the audience is left to presume things and have a omniscient relationship with the film. A younger audience may find this boring or challenging, however our older audience will hopefully enjoy the mental challenge and the concepts involved.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

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

Throughout the process the process of creating Red Balloon I believe I have learnt vast amounts of information about the process of creating a film.  This can vary from the planning of the film, the setting up of lighting and positioning, the filming and acting and lastly the post production process of editing and sound manipulation on garage band.


Throughout the process of constructing the film I have learnt and improved upon many technical skills. In our preliminary we did very little planning in comparison to our main film, due to this we can see that our work planning has obviously payed off in my opinion due to the fact that we can really see the difference it has made. For example, in our preliminary we had few shots story boarded and no real filming location planned, due to this we can see weaknesses we forced upon ourselves such as our camera angles being extremely restricted in the office scene for example due to lack of space. However as we improved our planning processes our new film learned from these mistakes and we made a full storyboard so we knew exactly what to do on the day. This was helpful due to the fact we had more abstract shots in the final film as we discussed the shots and their implications in full as a group, if we had not planned this many of our shots would have been average without any particularly special shots. In specific I believe for example our focus pull shot and worms eye view shot (used to portray distortion) would have simply not been possible without this planning and evolution of ideas within the group and we became more ambitious with our shots.

The Camera angles throughout our final film were blatantly better than those in our preliminary; this is especially effective as we learnt to use shots to portray emotions and ideas to the audience where however in our preliminary we simply used shots to show the action with little variation. This can be seen through examples such as the extreme close ups on the scissors which we used to increase tension.


During the process of creating our film I also learnt how to use lighting more effectively due to the fact our preliminary had no lighting added; this was a huge mistake and the difference can be seen obviously by looking at our final work. For example; the scene in which we see the man cutting letters would have been awful without the lighting techniques we used, it created tension and masked the mans identity, successfully withholding information from our audience was achieved with lighting. Here the lack of light and spots with light also helped to convey a darker sense to the film which simply couldn't have been achieved in a well lit room, it helped create tension and make the film seem darker in a metaphorical sense. Learning here was helped by great example I had seen in other films, such as the girl with the dragon tattoo's introduction was a big inspiration to our opening scene due to the excellent use of lighting and the effect it created.

The planning through the use of our animatic/storyboard also gave us the much needed time we needed to learn how to create a story and characters. I learnt from our preliminary not too just go for an easy, conformist story and instead we chose this abstract idea without any dialogue in or social interaction. The characters in our preliminary were very basic and followed set stereotypes obviously and parodied other films such as Austin Powers with the famous office scene involving the stroking of a cat and "I'v been expecting you" from doctor evil. This was decided strongly against in our real film as we learnt this left nothing to the audience to mentally think about when involving the creation of characters. In our main film we then did the opposite and gave almost no clues away about our characters identity's and their personality's. I learnt this would also follow the thriller technique of creating mystery and suspense more due to our restricted narration in the final film.


Inside the post production process I have also learn many new techniques. Although we did edit our primarily work I believe it was now of a poor standard in comparison, although we did perfect some things from the beginning such as match on action with examples such as stroking the cat and shutting doors. However in our final film we spent allot more time perfecting this particular technique which can be seen for example in the shot where the man walks off a style and you see his boot hit the ground.


The continuity editing was generally good throughout both films, they were both filmed with the same props and costume each time we began filming at the same time of day, there was little improvement I made here due to the fact it was perfected in the preliminary.

We also had to add effects to our final film such as fades, cuts and dissolves. I learnt allot in the process of creating Red Ballloon which can be seen from for example in our preliminary we did a fade to red towards the end, this made the film look cheesy with low production values; we also used several fades effectively to bring effect to our film. One viewer even commented on this saying how "The effects you have used are also sophisticated, fade can look tacky if used badly, but you've used it well and it just adds to the sequence."I believe the fades in our preliminary did look tacky, however I learnt from this which can be seen from examples such as the ending shot to our film of fades between the word dead and the balloon.

Lastly I also believe i have improved upon my sound editing skills, in the preliminary I had no idea how to work garage band, however I now believe I am fairly confident in the working of the program and could easily manipulate diagetic sounds throughout a piece of film and successfully add new effects such as wind and music to a film to create more tension and emotions within an audience.

All in all I believe I have learnt massive amounts about how to create films like this through the process of pre production, filming and then post production techniques.