Evaluation: Technologies.

Evaluation: Attracting an Addressing Audience

This film has two production companies.

One of them is "CANDI Studios", a low budget but aspiring, important and excellent production company which is known to important personalities in the U.K including the Queen.

 The other production company is "KADE PRODUCTIONS", an independent, low budget production company created for this film.

In terms of attracting and addressing audience, there will be a cinematic release on the 5th of April 2011 at the Screen on the Green and shared screenings amongst my peers and my family.

Also, it will get a DVD release of 200 copies. The internet would be used to further distribute by uploading  the film on Social Networks like Blogger, Youtube and Facebook. The internet would be used to further market the film so as to reach even a global Audience.

Following the steps of the above embeded student film that got 4151 hits (as at when I researched it), My thriller film might be posted on Youtube as well in order to publicise it.

Also, The film might be entered into film competetions like Eyeka, Film Nation, Barbican Film and so on. Hopefully, If the film is entered, It might win competitions and eventually lead to boosting its fame.

Evaluation: Audience

Profile of a Typical target Audience

Claire's bag content

Claire going to work

Claire shopping

Claire going to cinema

Claire, 28, an administrator working in an employment agency, loves shopping, going to the cinema and going to art exhibitions. Also  loves being outdoors, hiking, camping, gardening, or simply enjoying nature and escaping the city. Believes in the balance of hard work with relaxation and goofing off, going out and dancing vs. cuddling up on the couch, relying on others when life is overwhelming but also being the shoulder for  friends to cry on. Believes in seeking good karma, keeping awesome people, and that some things in life are just funny.

Claire at an exhibition

EVALUATION: Representation of Social Groups.

Male / Female Stereotype

Strong, evil man

In terms of representation of stereotypes, it is general assumption that men are the perpetrators of evil while women are helpless, defenceless victim. However, in the thriller opening we played with this representation and Stereotype and made a female to be the killer. stereotypes tells us who the victim is and who the evil person is. However, in this thriller, it is unclear why a woman should be the evil person and why the she kills people.

Defenceless, helpless woman.

Stereotype male killer in the Step father

Tables turned around- Female killer in Census (Group film)

Race Stereotype

In accordance with general perception in most films, black people are mostly stereotyped as being killers, dangerous and commiters of most crimes. This is mostly the case with black males. However, in order to contradict this stereotype, We (group members) decided to use a white female as the killer rather than a male (white or black) and a black person. 

Portraying rare killer woman stereotype

Portraying Black male stereotype

Construction of Character:

Black Glasses

In movies, the character's personality, class and status can be depicted through mise en scene, lighting, camera, editing and sound. In my thriller opening, the evil person can be easily recognised as being evil from her costume. All dressed in black. Her actions are evil, thus the lighting of the movie is dark. 

On the other hand, the dead character can be said to be of the lower middle class as the opening of the film shows a lower middle class street. The victims house reflects an urban residential location in North London.

Black boots

Black Coat

Residential Houses

Evaluation: Social groups

Comparison of representation:

Representation of environment:

Middle class house, represents normality, and makes it more realistic.

Stereotypes:

Normally in thriller films, the victim is a female. An example of this is are the female victims in 'The Stepfather'. In 'Census', I was the killer, and I am female, with the victim also being female. This differs to most films as the typical killer would be male.


Below is a Low Angle shot of the male killer to show that he is powerful and has high authority. Both charaters use a knife.

Uma Therman in 'Kill Bill', a female killer wearing the iconic yellow jumpsuit.

The female Census killer, in a black uniform, connoting evil.

In terms of race, most of the time the victim is white, with the killer sometimes represented by a black person with negative connotations. However, in our opening, we have cast the victim as black, and the killer white, to twist these representations and turn them on their head.

Evaluation: Conventions of Thriller title sequence Q1

Our sub-genre for our film was a suspense Thriller, so we need to assure our audience that it is one.  Intertextual references from other films such as 'The StepFather' and 'Psycho' will help our audience identify what type of sub/genre it is. From watching our short opening, you will be able to see references from other films.

Intertextual references from 'The Stepfather' and 'Psycho'

Tools



0:28 - Camera pans left to right, revealing
the tools involved in the incident

similarly in 'The stepfather '



With the camera panning smoothly, we get a point of view shot of the tools neatly laid inside  a bag.  Normality is established in this scene because our audience would not think of anything strange as these are used in everyday tasks until the camera focus' onto the bloody knife  besides it. We want our audience to adopt the persona of the killer, to see her 'daily' kit as if it something normal just like how people use a shaving or a make-up kit, as they peer over the tools. Similarly in 'The stepfather' bloody tools are dumped in the sink, which is not normal to see in everyday life.

Setting

 

The opening in our film  is an established shot, showing the location and where our chillings scenes will take place. Also in 'The stepfather' this has also been used, with a narrative which we also applied to our opening of Census. The houses used are quite similar as 'The Stepfather' looks as if its in a quiet, leafy suburban area of America whilst ours is a townhouse in a middle class area both with white painted houses.

 Lists

 When the killer looks at the list with blood stains used to cross out previous names, this has to be one of the most important scenes in our opening.  This is when the title 'Census' relates to this, as it means 'still counting.'  But in this case, the crossing out was to show the ending of another victims life. At the beginning of 'The Stepdfather', a man seen in a car also highlights/crosses out a name. However, this aspect has been used cleverly in our film, so that the killer has a souvenir of the victims blood.

Plugholes, water and blood

From the many Thriller films that we watched, the one thing that these films had in common is that they each had intertexual references from Hitchcock's 'Psycho.' Although, each film played with intertexuality in various ways we also used this iconic scene in our opening, just after the killer wipes the blood off the victims face, and goes to the kitchen to wash it off.  We followed the same sequence, of the close up on the plughole, the water swirling around it, mixed with blood from the victim.  I think this would help our audience realise that our genre is a Thriller, because of the intertexual references made.

Mirrors

Mise en scene, of course, played an important role in our opening, but most significantly, Mirrors.  In a normal house, mirrors are usually seen around the house, on walls to small compact ones lying around but we made sure those were out of sight until the last scene where we finally see the face of the killer as she puts on her glasses.  From watching, you should be able to see that the face of the killer was hidden, by leaving her head out of the frame, her hair hid the sides of her face and that her back was facing the audience most of the time.  We wanted to conceal her identity to connote that she is mysterious but at the same time for the audience to be curious,  making them want to know 'Who is this person?' 'The stepfather' also had mirrors, revealing David's face, although we did see him beforehand.  I feel using mirrors, the character can look at themselves and reflect on what they are doing.

Corpses

We wanted to put our audience in a calm but curios state by establishing normality throughout the first scenes of our opening to our film.  Everything seems normal, until the bloody knife is put on display, lists crossed out with blood markings but most of all, the corpse lying casually on the floor.  It would be strange for someone one to walk over a dead body, tidying/cleaning their belongings whilst someone is dead on the floor, then bizarrely taking swipes of blood on their face. We borrowed this idea from 'The Stepfather' as David goes along to do his daily routing of showering, shaving and making breakfast while his family lay cold dead on furniture and he walks out as if nothing has just happened.



Evaluation: Forms and Conventions

Some forms and Conventions of real media products that is included in my opening to a thriller movie includes;

• Setting of Location: Setting of location in a thriller opening is a convention or real media products. The first screen shot is from the Stepfather while the second screen shot is from my Thriller opening. Getting idea or insight from the stepfather, I have been able to include the setting of location in my own thriller opening. A similarity between the opening of the Stepfather and the opening of my Thriller is the showing of houses to show that the scene is taken place in a residential place.

• Title sequence in a very specific order: In comparison with the title sequence in the Stepfather, the title sequence in my thriller opening appeared in a specific order of the characters, and other production crew. This element is used in my clip in order to reflect the forms and conventions of real media products.

• Production company ident at the beginning: Production companies ident gives information about the company that produced the film which can also establish the genre of the film. In comparison to the Stepfather, I included two production company's ident in my thriller opening i.e ''Candi Studios'' and ''Kade Productions''. 

• Intertexuality (mise en scene):  In the stepfather, One of the mise en scene, The list of names with some crossed out was used, I decided to use this in my film as an element of intertexuality so as to reflect the conventions of real media products.

• Sound:

Evaluation: Forms and Conventions

Conventions of thriller title sequences:

Titles:

Introducing theme:

Both themes started by using normality, showing a shot of the house, and having the character doing normal things, such as washing. However this changes when shots of the victim's body is introduced, with mise en scene such as fake blood. Although, 'The Stepfather' used flashbacks to show action scenes, which we did not.

Suspensful/Scary Music:

As you can hear in 'The Stepfather' opening, we used the same musical instrument for the music, which was the piano. The effect of this was to make the mood very chilled, so that it would introduce the thrilling atmosphere more effectively. It would create a suspenseful tone, so that the tension would work alongside it.




The movie title is put in the beginning, but for Census, it is in the middle. The character is also seen at the start, but the Census killer is not revealed until the end.


















Here you can see the text is roughly in the same place, for example in the lower left hand corner. The text colour is different, and our text is roughly the same. Although, there is a difference in how it is written, as in The Stepfather, the names are in capitals.















Both openings show the character moving with bags.













Also, it is noticed how some of the text is put together at the same time, but in Census this is not the case.


The information not shown in the opening of Census, but in The Stepfather include:

Production designer
Director of photography
Executive produces
Etc...

This was because if it was a real movie, we would be include all of the most detailed information in the end credits.

Establishing location:















Both scenes are introduced with the shot of the house, which is the main location for both openings. However, we used panning to get an establishing shot of the house.

Establishing main characters:

Production company ident:

These are the idents used in 'The Stepfather'. They have used 'Screen Gems', but we have used two, 'Candi Studios', and one we made ourselves, 'Kade pictures'.

Intertextual references:

Both of the openings included a list, which would be eventually be ticked off, and is a vital part of information for the rest of the film.
















The same props were used, being a range of tools.

In the openings, shots were seen relating to blood being drained in water, and both using a sink.













Shots included the location of the kitchen. Left is a wide shot, and on the right is a birds eye view (high angle) shot.














The kitchen sink was used, but for different purposes.















This relates to our opening because of the bloody tools. Although, the killer in 'Census' washes these tools, and takes them with her. The killer in 'The Stepfather' leaves them in the sink, as he has changed his identity once again. This differs as the Census killer does not change her identity, as she is focusing on being discrete.

Here are similar shots taken from both openings.

They are all forms of close ups.

















Both killers leave the house in the opening. This is done so the viewers would want to know where they are going next.














We used a mirror, just like The Stepfather, only it was more effective in Census as that is the moment the killer is revealed.

This is the iconic shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's 'Pschyo'.

We used the same typical 'thriller' knife, in movies such as 'Pschyo'.

Age Certificate:

Neither openings include the age certificate, but for dvd release, they would be included before rolling the opening.

Other shots:

An issue was this casting text, as it was over the victim's face.

We kept the face and in some parts, the upper part of the body out of shot until the end so the killer's identity is not revealed till the end. This creates a mysterious feel.

Close up

Low angle shot

Close up