Evaluation

The purpose of a target audience is to see who would be the best people to watch your clip. If you didn't have a target audience then you wouldn't have anyone to aim to show it to and having everyone as a target audience is too large of a choice.

To work out who our target audience should be, we carried out a questionnaire that we got 20 people to fill out. It had questions such as 'what type of editing would you expect in a thriller' & 'how old are you' because we felt this would help us understand what the person would like/want to see in a thriller piece but also know how old they are and what gender so that we can make our target audience specific.

We surveyed 40 people as in our group and Rhiann handled our 20 and I handled out 20. We felt this was the right amount to help us get a wide representation of the population which would make our data have more validity which would cause it to be more accurate. 

The vox pops went well, we got 3 people to answer our questions; a teacher, a sixth former and a year 7. We felt this would help us in our decision of who would be in our target audience and what they would like to see. 

We used the following question, 'what gender are you' to help us decide which gender we were going to aim at. Our results showed that that 65% of people from the questionnaire were males.

This helped us in our decision of what characters to use as most males would rather see a female in a thriller film that a male. They would also get a better connection and feel more sympathy for a female character.

Interviews (Vox Pops)

Vox Pops:

In our group, we decided to create 3 different vox pops to get a more in depth response on what people's feelings are on thriller films. This helped us get a personal response, which helps us with the important decision of what we should include in our own thriller clip. Before we went to film the vox pops, Rhiann and I decided that we were going to get 3 people from different ages groups so that we could compare them to each other. One would be from the 11-13 age group; so that we could get a young person's opinion on thrillers. The second person would be from the 15-18 age group because they would represent the majority of teenagers. Also, this age group are more likely to have watched more thriller films that the children from the 11-13 age group and would be able to comment on the age certificate 15 thriller films. The last person would be someone over the age of 18 because they can watch whatever thriller film they want, when they want because they are old enough.

Here are the 3 vox pops:

Charts

After we collected all our questionnaire, we decided that we needed to present our data so that we could see the results clearly and use it to help us understand the population's opinion on thriller films.

Here is an image of all the charts that we made from the data that we collected from our questionnaires:

(Click on the image to enlarge it)

We used pie charts and bar charts with the different results. The reason why we used both was because we felt that when some of the results were shown as a pie chart they weren't clear enough and you couldn't tell what the exact result was so we put them onto a bar chart instead so that it would be clearer for the reader to see what the participants had chosen.

We used our data to help us with our own thriller clip and what we should add in our narrative and what we should keep out of it. For example, Question 10 in our questionnaire; what age and gender would you expect the victim to be?, 94% of our participants answered that they believed that a female would be a victim. This made us realise that it would be best to have females in our narrative and make sure they are the victims and that we make them look weaker to show they are the victims in it. 

The data also helped us change or add anything to our narratives that we felt would appeal more to the audience from the questionnaires as they are a mixed selection and count as our audience.

Questionnaire

The questionnaires were important for our research because we needed a way to found out some data and information about thriller movies. The questionnaires helped us to decide what to put in our own thriller sequence because we saw what people liked and disliked in thriller films.

Our questionnaire had the following questions:

1.What gender are you? (Please circle 1)

Male             Female

2.How old are you? (Please specify)

3.Which age certificate do you prefer to watch for a thriller film? (Please circle 1)

12            15            18           

4. Which of the following entices you to watch a thriller film the most? (Please circle 2)

TV Advertisement             Billboard            Magazine Advertisement            Magazine Interview

Online Video Clips            Word of Mouth            Other (Please specify)

           

5. What iconography (props) would you expect in a thriller film? (Please specify)

6. Which of these weapons would be the best to use in a thriller film? (Please circle 2)

Guns                 Knifes             Household Tools                         Explosives                         Cars                       

Swords            Chainsaws                        Axe                        Other (Please specify)

                                                

7. What type of sound would you expect in a thriller film? (Please specify)

8. What type of setting would you expect in a thriller film? (Please circle 2)

Abandoned House                        Forest                        Exotic Destination                        Normal Setting                        Hospital                        Other (Please specify)           

9. What type of editing would you expect in a thriller film? (Please specify)

10. What character would you most likely expect to be a victim in a thriller movie? (Please circle one in each row)

0-12 years       13-18 years      19-45 years       46+ years

Male                                                 Female

11. What sub genre would you most expect to be paired with the thriller genre? (Please specify)

We used questions like these because we felt that it would give us some extra insight into what people expect to see in thrillers and what they like to see. This helps us to work out what appeals to the audience and how we can make our own thriller movie appealing to our target audience.

We gave the questionnaire to 40 people to fill it out, with Rhiann getting 20 questionnaires filled out and I got 20 filled out. We agreed that we wouldn't ask specific people and make sure that we didn't ask people with too many similarities. We believe that this is the right amount of people because we would get a wide representation of the population which would cause our data to not be low in reliability which would help make our answers more accurate and correct.

Narrative Theory

There are 3 main narrative posts. They are:

·      Vladimir Propp’s theory about fairytales.

·      Tzvetan Todorov’s theory on Equilibriums & Disequilibriums.

·      Aristotle’s theory about the different themes.

Vladimir Propp (Fairytales)

Vladimir Propp had a theory about fairytales. He believed that the narratives weren’t that important, the important part was the characters. He said that each character had a function in the film. The 8 characters and their functions were:

·      The Hero – A character seeking something.

·      The Villian – The person who opposes or blocks the hero’s quest.

·      The Donor – The person who provides magical objects.

·      The Dispatcher – The person who sends the hero on their quest.

·      The False Hero – The person who makes false claims against the hero and disrupts their success.

·      The Helper – The person who aids the hero.

·      The Princess – The person who is the reward for the hero and the object of the villian’s plots.

·      The Princess’ Father – the person who gives the reward to the hero.

However, Propp’s theory only works if the film is a fairytale.

Tzvetan Todorov (Equilibrium & Disequilibrium)

Tzvetan Todorov’s theory is basically a simple version of the narrative. He said that the narrative will being in a state of equilibrium, where everything is as it should be. Then there will be some sort of disruption, which will be the disequilibrium. Then there will be recognition of the disorder and disruption. An attempt to repair the damage will happen and after that, there will be a new equilibrium for the end of the narrative.

He believed that the narrative was driven by attempts to restore the equilibrium and in the end, the equilibrium is never identical to the beginning one and that the narrative will involve some sort of transformation.

Aristotle (Themes)

Aristotle had a theory that there were certain themes that would happen within a film. These are the themes that Aristotle thought was important:

·      Inciting Incident

·      Dramatic Question

·      Character Goal

·      Antagonist/Protagonist

·      Stakes

·      Resolution

Our Theory

As a group we looked at all the theories listed above and decided that Tzevtan Todorov's was the closet theory that matched our narrative.

We believe that the theory is closely related because, our narrative starts where everything is normal and balanced nothing has happened, this is the equilibrium where the narrative begins and everything is balanced. The scene in our narrative then shows how the perfect equilibrium is disrupted, this is where the characters in our narrative begin to die in the game and are killed. The main character in our narrative then attempts to fix the disruption, by throwing the board game in a cupboard where she hopes no one will find it. Finally our narrative then reaches the resolution where the equilibrium seems to be resolved, although we are not sure as our narrative only features in the opening two minutes of our narrative.

Group Narrative

The other member of my group, Rhiann Johal did this as her narrative: 

My thriller will begin with a young girl running away from someone or something, the audience is not aware of what she is running from. But we know that she is scared and distressed because she is crying and has blood on her clothes and hands. She stops and hides behind a bush. The camera will then cut to a close up of her holding something in her hands which are all bloody, she opens her hands and the audience see a key in her hands. The camera then cuts back to flash backs that the girl has of her and some of her friends at a pier and she goes to a psychic and she is told 'this key will change your entire life'

Advantages and Disadvantages:

I like the part where the girl is running covered in blood. I think this will help create an enigma because the audience will try to answer the questions that will come into their head. I feel there isn't enough detail and if we were to continue with this one, we would have to add more detail to the narrative and sort out the whole plot line, not just the two minute sequence narrative. 

Our Final Group Narrative:

We decided to go with my narrative but take the flashback idea from Rhiann's and make the narrative more organised. 

The two minute sequence will start with the mother finding the board game and blowing the dust off it. This will then trigger a flashback from her, where she remembers playing the game, and the other girls dying. The camera will show them losing in the game, and then them being killed. After showing all three of them dying, the scene will be brought to the present where the mother will be shaking and panicking about finding it. She will rush out of the room/loft to put the game on the pile of rubbish that they are about the throw away. Right after the mother leaves the shot, her teenager daughter walks past the hallway and accidentally knocked the pile with the game down. She then picks everything up and the game catches her eye so she decides to go show the game to her friend.

Individual Narrative

My idea for the narrative would be about a group of teenage girls playing a board game. It then turns sinister as whoever loses in the game, gets killed outside of the game. Once the girls realise what is happening, they all decide to stop playing, so that no one else dies. They look it the rulebook and it tells them that if they don’t play, it will come back and get them when they least expect it. The girls ignore the rulebook and one of the girls hides it in their loft. Then, 20 years the girl’s parents are moving and she finds the game and decides to throw it away. She puts it outside and doesn’t realise that her teenager daughter has picked it up and taken it. She then takes it to a sleepover where they play the game and they get involved.

For my two minutes sequence, the first scene will be the three girls agreeing to never play the game again and talking about the other girls dying. I will show the mother panicking, swearing and running to put the board game outside to put it the pile to throw away. Then when she goes back into the loft, the game will fall off the pile and fall into the middle of the hallway. We will see her teenager daughter come, pick up the game and laugh. Her younger brother will ask her why she is laughing and she will explain that she is going to give it to her friend as a joke present at her birthday sleepover.

To make my narrative conventional, I have made sure that the victims are the teenage girls as you would expect a female to be a victim as they are shown as the weaker gender in conventional thriller films. There are many different enigmas in my narrative,such as the following:

•  who is killing them the victims
• where the board game came from? who found it?
• when did the victims die? how did they die?

My characters will be 5 teenager girls, with 3 of them dying and two of them deciding to stop playing with one of these girls finding the board game when they are older and her teenage daughter. 

The audience will connect with the victims as they are teenager girls who will be 15-17, so many of the audience might see the character and relate them to someone that they know. Also as they will see the girls at the sleepover beforehand, they will see them having fun and will want that to continue. Most of the audience won't want to see any harm come to the innocent girls who were just playing a game.

Age Certificate

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is a non-government organization that is funded by the film industry and is responsible for classifying all the films into age certificates within the UK. They classify videos, DVDs and some video games.

There are seven different age certificates category that films can be places in. They are the following:

More Details

Discrimination: No discriminatory language or behaviour is allowed unless they are showed being disapproved of. 

Drugs: No drugs allowed unless they are used for educational reasons or as a anti-drug message.

Horror: Horror can only be used briefly and cannot cause any anxiety to young children.

Language: Only mild bad language can be used.

Nudity: Only natural nudity can be used with no sexual content.

Sex: Only sexual behaviour like kissing can be shown and anything any further can only be referenced to.

Violence: Mild violence & threats only.

All these conditions can be shown through the narratives & characters. For example, in Monsters inc there are scenes where the main character Sulley has to scare a child to create power for the city. While there is a tiny part of horror, there isn't enough to cause a young viewer any anxiety over the scene. Another age certificate condition that is shown is through the character Sully. While he is a monster, they have drawn him to look fluffy and cute and he is smiling all the time. This makes the monster look less scary which can cause  children to see all kinds of monsters as nice because Sulley is so nice. 

Discrimination: Can only be used in a educational or historical context, otherwise discriminatory language and behaviour is unlikely to be accepted into this age certificate unless clearly disapproved by one of the characters.

Drugs: References to illegal drugs and drug use/misuse must not be harmful or offensive, or if it does then it must have a anti-drug message with it.

Horror: Frightening sequences cannot be long and intense.

Language: Mild bad language is the only kind that can be used.

Nudity: Natural nudity can be used as long as there is no sexual content.

Sex: Sexual activities can be implied but can only be done rarely. There may be mild sex references and innuendos.

Violence: Moderate violence can be used as long as there isn't any detail and it can be justified.

All these conditions can be shown through the narratives & characters. For example, in Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, discrimination happens when Draco Malfoy calls Hermione a 'mudblood'. However, this is allowed because we see Harry & Ron defend her and shout at his for using that word. Another condition is shown through a scene with the 3 teenage main character, where they see Harry's godfather change into a werewolf and stops his friend from attacking the children. The scene where the character Remus Lupin changes is quite frightening for younger children but they made the scene quite short so that it could fit into the 'PG' age certificate.

Discrimination: Aggressive discrimination cannot be used unless it is clearly condemned.

Drugs: Any use of drugs cannot be made to look glamorous and there cannot be any details of how to actually use the drugs.

Horror: Moderate physical and psychological threats can be used provided they are not frequent.

Language: Moderate language is acceptable but strong language can only be used rarely.

Sex: Sexual activities can be briefly portrayed. Sex references can only go as far as what is suitable for a young teenager. For a film to stay in the '12/12A', it can use crude references but can only do it a couple of times.

Violence: Moderate violence is allowed as long as there isn't that much detail and there is no empahsis on the blood and injury. They are allowed to have occasional gory moments as long as it can be justified. Sexual violence may be implied or indicated but must have contextual justification or else it will have to move into the '15' age certificate.

All these conditions can be shown through the narratives & characters. For example, in Taken 2 there are many chase/fight scenes but we don't see any gory or blood, which contributes to making it fit into the '12A' age certificate category.

Discrimination: It can be used but cannot endorse it and make it look good.

Drugs: Drug taking can be shown but they cannot be promoted and cannot encourage the audience to use them. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous drugs cannot be used.

Horror: Strong threats are permitted unless they are sadistic or sexualised.

Language: Frequent use of strong language is allowed and strong terms are ok, as long as they can be justified. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language will cause the film to be moved into the next higher age certificate.

Nudity: Nudity is allowed in a sexual content as long as there isn't too strong details. All nudity in a non-sexual or educational context is allowed.

Sex: Sexual activity can be portrayed without strong detail and strong verbal references about sexual behaviour is acceptable but the strongest reference must be justified. If the primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation then it will not fit into the '15' age certificate category.

Violence: Strong violence can be used as long as it doesn't dwell on the pain or injury. The strongest gory images, sexualised violence & strong sadistic images will not be acceptable for this age certificate category. Films in these age certificate can have detailed verbal references to sexual violence but if sexual violence is actually shown then it must be discrete and have a strong contextual justification.

The only things that aren't permitted in a 18 are if the film is against the law, if it can put the public at risk and or if there are sexual activited that cannot be justified.

All these conditions can be shown through the narratives & characters. For example, in 'Hellrasier', it doesn't go against any of the conditions above so it would be put in the '18' age certificate category.

The age certificate that I am going to use for my own thriller sequence is 15 because that will fit our sequence the best. We might have some strong violence but it won’t be too detailed and with our sequence only being two minutes, we won’t have enough time to apply that much violence into the scenes if there is a proper story line.

What is a Thriller Film?

What is a Thriller Film?

Codes and Conventions of a thriller movie:

·         There is always a protagonist/victim and an antagonist. This is because of the good vs. evil battle that you get in thrillers.

·         There is always an enigma, which is when there is some sort of mystery. This is used to keep the audience engaged with the thriller by keeping them interested and wanting to know what the mystery is. In scream, the enigma is who the killer is. The audience only find out right near the end, and this causes the audience to try and work it out for most of the movie.

·         Low lighting is a convention of a thriller movie because it helps to make the scene darker, which makes it seem more dangerous.

·         Someone will always get hurt in a thriller, either in a psychological, emotional or physical way.

·         The female characters are conventionally the weaker gender in thriller films and they are normally victims. This is shown in the film, ‘The Strangers’ where Kristen is shown being weaker by panicking and not being able to handle the pressure of someone knocking on the door.

·         Dramatic irony is used in thriller all the time. This is when the audience will know that the victim is going to get hurt before the victim knows it. This can be done through music, making the music more dramatic and heavy.

·         Eerie, jumpy music is normally used to make the scene more intense and help build a climax in a thriller.

·         The iconology is a thriller normally consists of objects that can be used to hurt or protect the characters, such as; weapons, chains, ropes, baseball bats or anything from the surroundings that can be used to defend a person from an attacker.

·         Binary opposition is the battle of good vs. evil in a thriller movie and you always have this or else there wouldn’t be any violence or conflict in the thriller films at all.

·         Mirrors are sometimes used to show depth in a character by having the good or evil person looking into a mirror and showing a different side of them. This was used in

·         The setting of a thriller movie is conventionally in dark, abounded places as these make the film seem more scary and sinister.

·         There is always some sort of chase scene in a thriller movie between the protagonist and antagonist.

·         A big convention of a thriller movie is keeping the identify of the antagonist hidden. This can help to keep the audience engaged because they will want to try and work out who is hurting the other characters.

·         There is always the 3 S’s in a thriller film – Shock, Surprise & Suspense. These are always in a thriller film and if one of these are missing, then the thriller film will not fit the convention of a thriller film.

Saw 1 Opening Sequence

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sEeH84GCcc&feature=related

Mise-En-Scene Analysis

Media Mise-en-scene Analysis: Prom Night

Mise-en-scene is an important part of a film because it helps to signal to the audience about how they want you to feel. It also tells the audience more about the characters and how they are feeling to each other.

The lighting and colour play a major part with highlighting people & objects and helps to convey the message that the film is trying to portray. In the beginning of the video, low key lighting is being used to create shadows and darkness. This connotes mystery and danger as the low lighting is causing the whole scene to look darker and blacker. This is conventional for a thriller movie because they will always try to create mystery so that the audience will be interested and want to work it all out. If we look at 4:23, the lighting and colouring helps draws the audience's eyes to the antagonist. This is caused by the light behind his head and the black door which causes the bright light to stand out more which causes the villian to stand out more.

The costume, hair and make-up show the audience more about the characters and what their personalities are like. The victim, Donna is wearing a ball gown with light make-up and the antagonist, Richard is wearing dark casual clothes with a baseball bat. You can see that Richard is the antagonist because he is wearing dark clothes, with darkness connoting danger and evil. He is also wearing a baseball hat which hides his face a little bit from the audience. Donna is wearing light colours, which can connote innocence and purity. It is conventional for the antagonist to wear dark clothes and clothes that will help them to disguise themselves & hide better. However, Donna’s outfit isn’t conventional for a thriller movie but it goes with the title on the movie, ‘Prom Night’

The positioning of characters draws attention to certain characters and highlights who are the main characters and who aren’t. One scene where this is shows is when Donna is getting her mum’s shawl from the closet in her hotel suite. When she is picking it up, Richard, the antagonist is behind her and puts his hand out to stroke her hair. Donna is in the middle of the shot, which shows the audience that she is the main attention on the scene. With Richard’s hand coming out of the darkness, it shows the audience that he is the bad person once again. This is also conventional because the victim will normally be the main focus with the antagonist being the secondary character.

The setting can help to manipulate the audience by building expectations and creating situations. This movie is held in a grand hotel which isn't conventional for a thriller movie, as you would expect a thriller to be held in an abandoned place or somewhere scary. However from the title of the movie ‘Prom Night’ the hotel is the perfect place for the movie setting. Donna and her friends are staying in a big suite with multiple rooms. This gives it a maze like feel which the audience see when Donna is locking and running though all the doors and rooms. The maze feel also makes the whole chase scene more exciting and makes it look more like a cat and mouse chase, because Donna hides under the bed, whereas if it was in a simple one roomed hotel suite, the chase scene would be a lot smaller and less exciting. This would make it a weaker scene and would not grab the audience's attention.

The facial expressions and body language can help the audience understand what the characters are feeling towards each other. When the security alarm goes off, we see most of the students being confused and not really moving. This shows that they don’t realise the seriousness of the situation and don’t actually seem to believe the guy who is telling them to move. This is conventional to a thriller movie because confusion helps to make the attacks and climaxes more intense and the confusion can make the audience believe that it is all going to be fine and create an illusion of safety.

My analysis of ‘Prom Night’ has shown me that if you do the correct mise-en-scene then you can create a very successful thriller movie. This has helped me with planning for my own thriller clip because I now know what to do to keep the audience's attention on my sequence and that the little details, such as lighting can play a major factor into a scene.