Evaluation, Task 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

To produce our Thriller it took a vast amount of preparation and planning to get it to a state where we were pleased with the product. To compare it to our preliminary task which took us a few days our thriller took us about a month if not more time to create.

We put together a folder listing our

• props 
• cast
• location details
• storyboards

However in our preliminary task we had 2 sheets of a storyboard in which we used a cast of whoever was available on the day and any props that were available in the theatre department. Our thriller storyboards we had to draw and design ourselves, giving details of location, type of shot and how long the shot will be going on for. Unlike our preliminary task where we were all given basic storyboard templates, on which we had to work around.

Filming

For our filming we had to set up a track which ran through the whole of the room and position it in a way so that it would cover all the angles where we wanted to get our shot in, for example when the camera tracks around the box so as to get the reactions of the audience when the blood comes out. Unlike in our prelim task where we had four basic camera shots so that when it came to the editing it would just be simple clean cuts, unlike our horror, which was more complicated as when it came to the editing we had to layer the sound so as to create the effect that it was in a large bar with a large crowd.

The use of After Effects played a huge part in our thriller as this gave it a dated look so as to fit the time period as we overlayed two versions of the footage to make it look hazy, along with putting the footage in black and white and then cutting around the blood to put it back into its original colour of the red, to make the footage more visually stimulating for the viewer. In our preliminary task we didn't even touch the After Effects software, so to use it for our thriller as a new tool was very interesting and really brought our thriller to life.

Here we can see the difference from my preliminary task opening which consisted of a plain sheet of paper with our names hand written on it, along with the negative space around the paper. If we compare this to our title card for our opening sequence in our thriller we can see how this opening look is more proffessional drawing the audience in to watch it compared to our preliminary task.

 

Here we can see the first shot that we have of two people in the shot as the importance of the screen. we can see above in the prelim task that there is lots of negative space around the two characters and looks uninteresting for the audience, however if we look at the shot below we can see that there is less negative space with the two characters as there are other items in the shot to fill it up, for example the magic box.

            

Here is a mid close -up from each still in the prelim and the opening sequence, with the lighting on the boys face above we can see that the lighting was too bright and un-naturalistic, compared to the shot below where the lighting is quite dark to project an eeary effect.

In these two shots we can see the object of importance for the storyline, the gun in the preliminary and the magic box in the opening sequence, for this we can see that the smoothness of the shots ran a lot smoothly in the opening sequence, unlike the shot above which felt very fake and sticato; against the rest of the plot.

Comparing our closing shots between the two sequences we can see how much has improved with the quality of the work as the last shot of the opening sequence is more spooky and endearing and powerful compared to the preliminary task which finished with the same two people in the shot, however both plots of the story finish on a cliffhanger so as to carry on the story.

During this process I have learnt a lot of new techniques and have made a vast improvement compared to the prelim to the opening sequence, For the opening sequence I was able to use after effects, soundtrack pro and recordings to enhance and make the sequence better and more impacting on the audience than the prelim

Task 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Here we have explained the process used to create our opening sequence for our thriller

Task 5: How did you attract/ address your audience?

A Powerpoint Presentation on How we attracted our audience

The magician 2

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Task 4: Who would be the audience for your media product

I think that the audience that would be most attracted to our film would be the age range of 18 - 30 year olds, as it would have an interesting plot with bankable stars, targeting the younger audience. However from the time period of the piece it would attract a much older audience, we would also use a soundtrack that would be associated with that time period so that everything in the film would correspond with each other as this would make it more relatable for an older audience as they would be able to adhere to the time period more so than the younger ones. We had this age range in mind as this is these are the ages that are most likely to visit the cinema.
        

For our Thriller Opening sequence we have created a continuous tracking shot, showing a magician perform a magic trick and pulling a "random" pretty girl out of the audience, she is then taken from the audience and shown into a black box (which is supposed to show the audience that it is a magicians magic box) The magicians assistant then shuts the box walking around the back to present to the audience, as an audience member we then see from behind the stage that blood is then pooring out of the box. We did this because we wanted to see the audience's reactions when the blood comes out.

Our Thriller is a period piece, it is set in the time of the 1950's and 60's, where a man dressed as a magician goes around to bars and clubs to perform shows to the public. Our opening sequence shows the first killing, which the magician then flees from the scene of the crime, the police get involved trying to understand the concept behind the murder's killings, in the first intial move the police try to hunt him down, but then become more invoved in watching his shows to understand his escape and to understand if maybe there is more than one killer and if so it may not be him. In the end they catch the killer, exposing him to the public.

Task 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The product that we have produced "The Magicain" is a movie a long the lines of a murder mystery, a plot which has to find the killer before its too late.

A media institution who I think would produce the movie we have made would be Fox Searchlight as looking at the recent films they have made:

• Slumdog Millionaire
• Wrestler
• Crazy Heart
• Never Let Me Go
• Conviction
• 127 Hours
• Black Swan
• Tree Of Life

just to name a few. The reason I have chosen Fox Searchlight is because looking at the movies they have made a few of them are period pieces, set in the 1950's just like ours, which have also been very successful, two examples would be:

• Never Let Me Go
• Tree Of Life

            
these two films have been very successful, with a non- high concept product like ours, but both films using bankable stars (Brad Pitt, Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightly, Sean Penn) this is why I believe that Fox SearchLight would be a great producer for our thriller "The Magician, as our thriller has the same key ingredients such as, narrative over action, bankable stars, a possible love interest in the story, making the audience believe that this is why the person killing my be after girls

Another reason that Fox Searchlight would produce our film would be because if we look at the:

• Black Swan
• Wrestler
• 127 Hours

                  

These films are thrillers but have an aspect of horror due to the fact of the level of gore it has in it, as "The Wrestler has a lot of bloody wounds and broken limbs, in the "Black Swan" we see a more physicalogical side to it, but there is still gore as she stabs another girl as blood goes everywhere, aswell as the scene where she pulls back the skin to her finger. "127 hours" has a large element of gore as we see him rip his arm off to get out of the rock; like ours will have as well due to the killings that will take place. These films are also based around a career, i.e. The Black Swan, The Wrestler etc. and the sacrifices and secrets of the industry, just like we will learn in our movie "The Magicain", as during this film you find out the secrets of the contraption he has created and all of his tricks that he performs. This is also where the movies correspond as "The Magicain" is a performer offering a service to the public just like "The Black Swan" and "The Wrestler".

Task 2: How does your product represent particular social groups?

In this shot we see two young women on the stage performing the magic trick, the girl on the right is an audience member and on the left is the magician’s assistant. The young woman from the audience is intended to represent the innocence of young females. We dressed her in a white vintage dress to fit the time period and to uphold the stereotype of innocence and purity, and to conform to what the horror/thriller genre dictates a victim to be. The magician’s assistant is intended to be “the glamorous assistant”, her character was designed to be eye catching, wearing a gold and sparkly dress, this was useful in the opening sequence as it attracts the attention of our male target audience as she is the stereotypical “eye-candy” status.

Another Social group that is represented in our thriller would be that of fictional plot lines, (shown above in our shot of a traditional magician) people who like storys such as Merlin and Dr Who where it challenges real life with the mystical. They would enjoy our film "The Magician" as it has elements from the mystical side of magic and how it is unusual, attracting the social group to watch the film.

    

Task 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Here is a powerpoint presentation on how our opening sequence.
The Magician

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Our Shoot Day

On the morning of the 31st of January, I arrived with my group to the studio to set up our set, the friday before our shoot we had to pre-prepare by painting our box black so that it would be dry on the day, this was made out of chip-wood which can be easily supplied through gardening stores. Our set also required a stage as our plot was centred around a magician who performs tricks.
Our setting for our story was to be set in an old burlesque type looking bar, we created this by having black curtains drawn around the outside, with black walls and black flooring, our props included:

• A black box
• table and chairs
• wine bottles
• wine glasses
• table cloths
• a top hat
• fake blood
• smoke machine

we had to gather these props and display them around to create the effect that it was a crowded and busy bar, we did this by arranging the tables, close together so that when the camera tracked through it would have mid shots (shoulder upwards) in the shot, creating the illusion that there was many people there (sound later will be added to create this effect).

For our actors and actresses we had them dressed up in:

Males:

• suits
• bow tie
• shirt
• (smart looking)

Women:

• Cocktail dresses
• Smart jackets

Magician:

• Bow tie
• Top Hat
• Suit
• Frilly shirt

Alice:

• A vintage style dress in the colour white, to show her innocence
• black tights
• pumps

Magicians Assistant:

• Gold Sparkly Dress
• New Yorkers

we didn't call our actors untill after 11.30 as we did not need them yet because we still had to set up the shot and make sure that it would all run smoothly. In our set we also had a smoke machine as this added to the effect of a burlesque bar, this is because in those days you would be allowed to smoke in bars and clubs. We also set up 3 tables with white table cloths on top of them, we had the 3 tables staggered so that the camera could track through them easily. On the tables were wine bottles and wine glasses filled with apple juice to look like white wine and cranberry juice to make it look like red wine. Once we got the actors in it was pretty simple, there job was to sit there and react to the action around them whilst the magician asked his assistant to pick a person from the audience.

A problem we had on the shoot day was figuring out how to make it seem like blood was pouring out of the box, we tried an idea by me coming out later on in the shot and crawling onto the stage out of shot of the camera and pouring the mixed blood of cranberry juice and fake blood onto the stage. However we realised that this wouldn't work, so instead we drilled a hole into the corner of the box got a funnel with a tube which was placed into the box, so small you could barely see it. So, once Alice, the girl in the box was positioned in the box, her cue to pour the blood from inside was the number 2, on this the blood would pour out and from the camera angle which was situated from behind the box we would be able to see the audiences reaction to the blood in a long shot.

We shot this 2 times and within that we got our shot. The shoot day was very successful as we got everything we wanted done on time and quickly, this was due to proper planning and good collecting of props to use in the piece. I found the shot day to be very fun and relaxed and this has given me a taste for shooting more often. I am now looking forward to the editing process as this is my favourite part. As it was one long tracking shot we will not have to piece any material together but it will be a very time consuming process to put all the sound in as we will have to create layers of it to create the right atmosphere of the piece.

Pictures of how we envisioned the set to look

the shot of the magician performing to the audience and where he would be on the set

here is a picture of how we envisioned the stage including a key of what everything is on the set.

here i drew a picture of the bar and what we wanted everything to be on it.



Cast List

For our thriller we had to cast a series of young actors to play the part in our movie. We casted a young male, to play the magician and a young looking girl to play the victim as these were our main characters it was imperitive that we got it right.



Props list and Costumes



Storyboards for our thriller

Scans of our story boards dipicting how the camera is going to move around the stage

Inspiration for our thrillers

A movie that i have looked at that links in with our Thriller is a movie called "The Illusionist" , the plot of the story is:

 A young boy falls in love with a girl that is way above his social standards along with the art of magic. Although the parents forbid them of seeing each other they cannot be split apart. Until one day they were found together and the boy was sent off. He became a magician and traveled the world. She fell in love with another man, the Crown Prince. The two got engaged but the boy, Eisenheim, finally meets back up with the girl and uses his powers to free her from the royal house in Vienna.



The trailer for "The Illusionist" :

Another film I looked at was a film based around magic, called "The Prestige", the plot of the story is:

In the end of the Nineteenth Century, in London, Robert Angier, his beloved wife Julia McCullough and Alfred Borden are friends and assistants of a magician. When Julia accidentally dies during a performance, Robert blames Alfred for her death and they become enemies. Both become famous and rival magicians, sabotaging the performance of the other on the stage. When Alfred performs a successful trick, Robert becomes obsessed trying to disclose the secret of his competitor with tragic consequences.



The trailer for "The Prestige" :