Target Audience Profile

Preferred Genre: 

Horror or Thrillers 

Areas of Strength: 

I have used a video camera before an am really interested in photography. 

I am extremely enthusiastic and enjoy writing and planning, I have also done a lot of theoretical work in the past. 

Areas of Improvement:

I have never used Photoshop or any other editing apps. in addition I have never studied Media before.

I need to learn and understand terminology a lot deeper and aim to not describing the narrative but analysing it.

My key skills consist of being very well organised, possessing an interest in writing , I am a good team worker and listen and understand other ideas opinions to mine.

Thriller Genre Conventions (mind map)

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Preliminary Task Location Scouting

Location Scouting 

Today my group and I went location scouting. We focused on looking for locations that withhold a clinical an harsh atmosphere. Our location was to represent a psychiatrists room, generally these rooms consist of chairs, usually comfy sofas. We scanned the school looking in rooms such as the common room and cafe for our perfect location. 

        The Common Room

               The Canteen 

                 An Office

Theorists

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Thriller Film Opening Pitch

 The genre my group and I have chosen for our film opening is Thriller. We particularly enjoy this genre because films falling within the Thriller generally have intriguing story lines and have the ability to influence the brains thoughts, helping our brains to think deeper and smarter. I personally chose Thriller because Unlike other genres of film, Thriller gives the audience a rush of adrenaline, keeping the audience hooked in and interested. Some famous thrillers are; 

The structure of our opening is a palindromic structure. Our sequence commences with our main character running through the woods including shots that we are to present as our film draws to an end. We then illustrate shots of our antagonist and protagonist conversing, the evil psychiatrist and the patient possessing mental illness. We decided this would be an effective structure as it would leave the audience on a cliff hanger. A cliffhanger is a plot device which features a main character in a difficult dilemma at the end of an episode. A cliffhanger is hoped to ensure the audience will return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma.

Me and Cailin will be acting within our film opening. We chose to do this because it will ensure that effort will be put into making the opening appear interesting and effective. Both characters presented in the opening will be Female. Cailin playing the patient possessing mental illness who is a young adult, around 18-25 years old and me playing the evil psychiatrist who is slightly older in her 30s. 

The locations we will be scouting will be ones withholding an eerie atmosphere. We are looking for a particularly dark forest. Hollywood forest in Warley, Brentwood is a location that fits this description.  Another location being Thorndon Country Park. We are also searching for a location with mysterious and creepy chairs, in order to represent the psychiatrists room. withing my home I have many chesterfield chairs. For this reason, my home is a location that we will consider choosing for our opening sequence.

Conventions of the Thriller genre that wish to include in our opening scene are low key lighting,shadows, dark tones and colours, diegetic sound of breathing, and changes in the angle of shots . We have also chose for our sequence to begin in a state of disruption, a method that we believe will immediately grasp the audiences attention, and have them hooked in.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Preliminary task evaluation 
Our preliminary task was to film and edit a short. It must include an opening door, a character crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, followed by the two exchanges a few lines of dialogue. Our task demonstrated match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule. 




Match on action/ Cutting on action is an editing technique for continuity editing in which one shot cuts to another shot, illustrating action. This creates the impression of a sense of continuity, the action carrying through creates a “visual bridge” which draws the viewer’s attention away from slight cutting or continuity issues. Match on action portrays a continuous sense of the same action rather than matching two separate things. 


Shot/ reverse shot is also a continuity editing technique used in conversations or simply a character looking at another character or an object. a shot/reverse shot shows reveals what the character is looking at, either at a point of view or over the shoulder. shot/reverse shot often ties in with the 180-degree rule to retain continuity by not distorting the audiences sense of location of the characters in the shot.

The 180-degree rule is a filming guideline that participants in a scene should have the same left-right relationship to one another, with filming only taking place in the 180 degree in which this maintained in a conversation. this shot allows the audience to grasp a greater sense of location in the scene.

We chose to present a conversation between a patient suffering mental illness and a psychiatrist. We thought this would be a nice introduction to our chosen genre, for our main task, which is Thriller. we filmed this in the common room within our sixth form. to our advantage there are many sofas in this room, making it suitable for our storyline, as a psychiatrist's room very commonly withhold comfy chairs or sofas. There was also very high key lighting in this particular room.This fits nicely with our idea, as it can be perceived as 'clinical'.

Insidious Mise-en-scene Opening Analysis

Horror: Insidious

Insidious is an American supernatural horror film, based on the story of a boy who becomes a vessel for demons in an astral dimension. The film was directed by James Wan and was released on April 1^st 2011.

The film commences with a high angle shot, supplying the audience or viewer with an overhead view from above who is thought to be the protagonist. A pan movement is used to scan the room horizontally, revealing a young boy in his bedroom surrounded by board games, creepy teddy bears and other toys. This establishes that the character is very young. Stereo typically, the child within a horror film plays the protagonist. This is because children are generally seen in a positive view and are “innocent”.

The opening sequence is set in a bedroom. There is low key lighting, creating multiple shadows, suggesting a dark sinister theme within the film. Generally, children fear their bedroom of a night time, when the room is dark. The shadows and low key lighting propose that the child may be in danger, or will be as the film progresses. The low key lighting foreshadows portending doom.

 A pan shot is used again to present the rest of the house. We then come across a ghostly appearing character, who is zoomed in on with a zoom shot. The camera then scans the room again, this when there is a close up of the distressing character, creating fright within the audience. By creating fear within the audience, they immediately get hooked in the film, and want to know what happens next.

Non-diegetic sound is used throughout the entirety of the opening sequence. A high pitched violin is playing, commencing calmly and slowly growing out of control, louder and at a faster tempo when the antagonist (the ghostly figure) appears. Instruments within the classical style generally connote horror or fright, working successfully when aiming to create fear within the audience watching a film belonging to the horror genre.

Red (associated with blood) font, mysterious disturbing music, low key lighting and shadowing, and an eerie appearing character are all demonstrated within the opening sequence of Insidious (2011), following the generalised conventions of horror genre.

Defining the Film Industry

The Film Industry 

Pre-production

Pre-production refers to the tasks under taken before production begins. Exactly what is included in this stage depends on the medium and situation.For a small video company, pre-production may refer to everything that happens before shooting begins, for example, meeting with the client, research, story boarding, location planning, etc.For feature films, pre-production is more specific and only begins when other milestones have been met such as financing, screenplay, casting and major staffing. In this case pre-production includes:

• Location scouting
• Prop and wardrobe identification and preparation
• Special effects identification and preparation
• Production schedule
• Set construction
• Script-locking (semi-finalisation of the script)
• Script read-through with cast, director and other interested parties 

Production 

Production begins once the footage is recorded. This process will capture all the scenes and information captured in the pre-production process. During the production process you will work out the lighting requirements, framing and composition. Some projects will also shoot B-Roll during the production process. B-Roll is supplementary footage that is included in the finished product.

Post-Production

The post production process begins after all the footage has been captured. Graphics can be added along with images, music, colour correction and special effects. If you are producing your own video content there will be a bit of a learning curve at first, but it will be really rewarding.Post-production is like putting the last coat of paint on in a room and it will be well worth the time to learn the basics. This is where your video project will really come to life.

Horror Film Comparison

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The Woman In Black Film Opening Analysis

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The Goonies Film Opening Analysis

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Introduction

Greetings, my name is Mia O'Brien, welcome to my AS Media Blog. I am looking forward to developing my knowledge on cinematography, editing, and mise-en scene.

I enjoy viewing pre-existing films and analysing them. My favourite genre of film is Thriller. 

Due to not studying media at GCSE, I will need to further my knowledge and begin to understand the importance and meanings of camera angles. 

I have been placed in a group with Cailin Brisbourne and Claudia Messenger who fortunately both enjoy the Thriller genre.