Unit G321 evaluation of your thriller

Unit G321 evaluation of your thriller
1) Our film uses, develops and challenges the forms and conventions of thriller films. Our film was primarily inspired and influenced by gangster thrillers, (predominantly ‘Essex boys’ and ‘Lock, stock and two smoking barrels’). These helped to influence our gritty, unglamorous location (a desolate track surrounded by three empty crates). We were also inspired by the sewer scene in ‘The Third Man’ and tried to recreate the sense of the moral descent of Harry Lime in our character Sam by filming him dying in a dirty puddle. We were also influenced by the Femme Fatale character in ‘Jackie Brown’, ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Psycho’ when developing the character Monika. For example, Hitchcock uses sequence in Psycho in which Marion Crane changes her underwear from white to black, which represents her decision to be deviant. This inspired us to film Monika getting ready to kill Sam by putting on a pink/red lipstick, which signifys her sexuality and the danger that lies ahead. Our costume for Monika was also strongly influenced by these three films and included stiletto heels, a high waisted skirt and fishnet tights. We chose to use a piece of classical music over our film by Richard Strauss (‘the last song’), as it is a piece of music recognised as being about morality (similar to the issues raised in our film). The music also links to our character Sam, and his dreams of being a composer, which he did not live to fulfil. Our choice of music was so influential to the dynamic of the film we decided to include it in the films title, ‘Monika’s Last Song’.


2) Our Thriller film represents women as strong, powerful characters and has feminist influences when representing gender. Although our research showed that our audience preferred a male lead in a thriller we decided this was only chosen because it was the most familiar and instead we chose a strong, femme fatale (Monika). Our challenging of gender stereotypes is established in the high angle close-up opening shots which portray our lead male Sam as a victim. Our film is set in Norwich, England and does not portray the area in a positive light. For instance, we purposely used no cultural signifiers and explored the issue of identity in the English culture by the way Monika turns to illegal drugs and violence because she does not feel British (this can be seen in the scene where she uses an identity card to cut her cocaine, which she then tosses aside). The rising issues of assault and gang violence in Britain are also presented in the killing of Sam.
3) Our thriller film would be distributed by a media institution such as Multiplex because the film was made to suit and be available to a wide target audience and is therefore more mainstream. It is likely our film could have funding problems and therefore we could use social network sites, sites like YouTube, and sites such as LoveFilm as a way of distributing our film to a wide audience and offering a way of downloading the film to an MP4. This could be very successful as we have an aged 18-25 demographic and this type of audience is the most likely to be familiar with and use such technology. We could also distribute the film straight to a DVD, including BluRay.
4) Our target audience is males and females aged between 18 and 25 and mostly working or middle class as they would tend to empathise the most with the main character Monika and her more difficult upbringing and sitituations that occur in the film, for instance the involvement in drugs because of a struggle with money. Our target audience would also be interested in some ambiguity (for example in the beginning of our film it is not clear who the characters are and why they are fighting). Our target audience would be interested in contemporary gritty thrillers such as ‘Fight club’ and ‘Seven’ as these deal with similar issues and characters to our own film, and older classics like Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ and Carol Reed’s ‘The third man’, as the audience would enjoy recognising the references to them and the way they have influenced our film. Other films our audience might enjoy are ‘Lock stock and two smoking barrels’, ‘Essex boys’ and ‘The third man’ because they are of a similar ganster/thriller genre.
5) We attracted our target audience by basing our film on the results of the questionnaires. We chose an Monica, an attractive woman, as our main character as she appeals to a female audience through ability the empathise and in some respects aspire to be, but she also appeals to man as she is sexually attractive, interesting and has the agrresive aspects that would traditionally be found in a male lead role. We chose not to use a voice over to help the audience to empathise with Monica because we wanted to give a sense of mystery towards the beginning of the film and a effective voice over would require extremely good acting, which we found difficult to find in a short space of time. However our opening scene does help define Monica as a character, with a classic femme fatale like sequence of her looking extremely vulnerable as she puts on her make up in a badly lit room, which will later surprise the audience when her darker side is revealed. Our target audience would be familiar with gangster thrillers films (such as “Lock, Stock…” and “Essex Boys”) and the influences from these would meet the audiences generic expectations of this genre of film. The action in our film (for instance the violent scene showing Sam’s death) would grip the audiences attention and indicates that there is more action that will follow. We also took the risk of using the classical piece of music ‘The Last Song’ (Richard Strauss), as it is an interesting contrast to the action the audience are watching and is not what our demographic would be familiar with or used to, and therefore would add interest. It also helps the film from looking cheap and instead more classic.
6) The process of constructing our thriller film has taught me a lot about how to use different technologies. I have learnt about the conviences of using digital cameras, especially since we were shooting in difficult locations. I have also learnt that to keep a film visually interesting, there is a need for a range of and a variety of diverse camera angles and shot types. I have also learnt that a scene can be dramatic and effective without the use of lots of extreme close ups. I have also learnt how to use the editing software Adobe Première Elements, and skills on this such as how to edit diagetic sound without it seeming unnatural. The importance of continuity in our narrative structure has taught me how to achieve a good quality film using the editing software. I have found the fade in/out effects on the software extrmemly useful and this has lead to in my opinion the most effective part of the film where there is a flashback of Monica and Sam over the top of the scene where she is washing his blood from her hands.
7) The progression between the preliminary task and our finished thriller film has helped me to learn how to work constructively in a group when planning, shooting and editing a film and how to plan a filming schedule. I have also learnt the importance of filming the same scene in lots of different ways until everyone is satisfied with the outcome, as there are some obvious improvements that could be made in the Preliminary and less obvious mistakes in the thriller as we obviously tried to perfect it a lot more. I think the strength of our film is the mis-en-scene, for example the femme fatale costume and the objects such as the identity card and the metrodome (influenced by the beginning scene of Seven). We achieved continuity when editing and a range of effects in our film. The thing I have learnt the most from the whole process is that when shooting and editing a film it is important to be flexible and work with and around changes. We had to change our entire cast due to reliability and our original story board featured only one location and a car, which was an unrealistic prop to aspire to use.