The ending of Psycho shows a super imposed image of Norman's mother's skeletal face over that of Norman's. We decided to takle inspiration from this and use a similar edit at the end of our opening sequence, before the rest of the film continues.

Syndicate Final Film

Evaluation Question One

Evaluation Question 1 from sophieschmidtke

Evaluation Question Two

Evaluation Question Three

Evalution Question Four

Evaluation Question Five

Evaluation Question six

Evaluation Question 6 from sophieschmidtke

Evaluation question seven

Post Production Questionnaires

These results show that overall, our audience of people between the ages of 15-17 had a very positive reaction to our film, with all our results commented that they would watch the film again. With regards to the age certificate,  all agreed that the age limit for our film should be at least above 12, with no one suggesting it to be aimed for young children (PG or under) which fitted our target audience. Comments included that there was "really good cinematography and camerawork. These questionnaires also really helped us know if we achieved what we aimed for, creating a high quality start of a film clearly showing our psychological thriller genre with a creative narrative, showing tricky shots and editing. We know we die create a creepy, almost scary thriller (as we aimed) as answers said the film "scared me".The questionnaires also helped us know if we needed to edit anything about the film before putting our final product on YouTube; there was a slight sound disturbance in the film which we fixed so our end product was of the best quality we could achieve.

Evaluation-Question 7.

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

Our preliminary exercise was, in our group's case, the first time we had had the opportunity to film using a camera and edit the product afterwards. The task, in order to pass, required the use of  match-on-action shots, (this was done by filming myself closing a door and cutting the footage in editing, so that the shot flows into one action despite being filmed at a slightly different viewing perspective,) keeping continuity throughout the footage, and not crossing the 180 degree line whilst filming. The exercise taught us a lot about how to use a camera effectively and to consider lots of different aspects such as lighting, perspectives, varied shots and editing that we previously hadn't thought of. The exercise therefore helped us enormously when filming our actual media product, as we'd already taken the time to gather an insight on how to (and how not to) shoot our film.

Preliminary Task-
https://youtu.be/-WGRs0ACjgU

For instance, the match-on action editing technique is used at the very beginning of our film. This is when O'Brien moves her hand towards the record player. The next shot then cuts to O'Brien placing the needle on the record player as a song begins to play, so the shot appears to the audience that this has been a single, continuous action.

We also included an example of the shot-reverse-shot, using the 180 degree rule ( in which the two characters engaging in the scene must maintain the left/right relationship to one another, otherwise, if the camera crosses over the 180 degree line, it will look as though the characters are not interacting with each other and confuse the audience.) We used this in the scene where O'Brien and H look directly at each other from across the street, as this was an important reaction between the two main characters, and we wanted the audience to see their interaction.

Our task again therefore gave us a crucial insight on how to shoot our film. However, creating our media product proved to be a much bigger and more complicated task that required our full attention. We had to carefully plan our media product. Our preliminary exercise's only planning consisted on creating a basic storyline and script, taking minutes to think of and put onto paper. However, we took much more time and care when it came to our media product, all of us creating our own original idea for storyline after doing individual research through existing films and video clips of what the conventions of the chosen genre were. When we narrowed down a final storyline, our group then began to plan how to shoot our film and what we wanted to include in it through audience certificate research, location shots and storyboards. This not only allowed us to be fully prepared for filming  and for each group member to know exactly what was being filmed on a particular day, but also improved our effort and commitment to filming from the preliminary exercise. Our group now seemed more focused on the scene we were shooting, leading to us finishing shots and making progress at a much quicker rate. 

In addition, we also had to evaluate what features actually made our media product a psychological thriller. Unlike the preliminary task, in which there wasn't a outstanding genre featured, we had to carefully consider how we could use different conventions of our chosen genre to have an effect on the audience. This required us to combine previous research with our imaginations in order to work as a team and film together. This resulted in  tricky shots and editing that looked impressive and attractive to the audience, and fitted perfectly with our chosen genre. For instance, we used a variety of different types of editing to add a sense of surrealism and build-up in our media product in order to command the viewer's attention.

Here, we used editing to make H vanish once he is behind the lamp post, making him seem surreal and mystic.





We sped up this shot during editing of H shaking his head to again emphasise his element of seemingly supernatural power.

We also sped up this shot to establish O'Brien's locations and to add a sense of eeriness to the scene.




Overall, our media product was a success for a variety of reasons, and the progression from our preliminary task was an important factor. The task allowed us not only how to work the camera to ur advantage, but how to work and organise ourselves as a team. Our previous research and organisation of tasks for each person allowed us to pull together and produce what we see as a highly successful media product fitting to psychological thriller genre. 

Analysis of a title sequence

Evaluation- Question 6.

Question 6 from izzywatsonmedia

First 5 minutes of a similar film (Skyfall)

The Supreme Team Production Logo

Title Sequence Analysis- Kill Bill Vol.1

Conventions of Psychological Thriller- Sound & music

Links in document: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0EXHvbsnJ8

Conventions of Psychological Thriller- Mise-En-Scene

Conventions of Psychological Thriller- Editing & Cinematography

The links in the document: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIy24_NMZtQ&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i--XvXxvApY&feature=youtu.be

Evaluation Question 7

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation question 6 from Mitchellmediasuperstar1

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation- Question 5.

Shot with films and finding from questionnaire.

Question 5- How do you attract/address your audience?

After establishing the main aim of the feeling we wanted to embellish in our audience, feelings of thrill, suspense and fear, we very carefully planned out how to do this through mise-en-scene, shots and cinematography, by using shot lists, location shots and a storyboard pre production. Like in most psychological thrillers, we wanted the attraction to be the tension and unknowing build up for the audience, they needed to work out the mystery for themselves. One of the answers from our post production questionnaire stated that this was achieved through the sped up, close up shot of O'Brien, zooming out to reveal that half of her face is marked with H's skull makeup. This shot, teamed with the non- diegetic audio whispering "nothing is the same", represents H's full take over of O'Brien, she is now hardly herself, and he is in total control of her, leading the audience hanging in suspense and allowing them to interpret the rest of O'Brien's fate for themselves.

The overall result of our questionnaires seemed to be a success- some of our comments being "great special effects and camerawork" and "really good cinematography" with only a little difficulty with occasional stability of the camera in some area, making it appear a little shaky, which could have been improved by holding the tripod over stable ground. The most popular attraction seemed to be editing we used to make the film seem more thrilling and exciting of the audience. Examples of this include the sped up shot of H at the very end of the film, creating a scene of surrealism and chiaroscuro, and the filter used when O'Brien is being tortured, creating a dream-like state. Overall, the believe the most successful aspect of media product was our use of editing and cinematography, it successfully established our genre to our audience, and seemed to noticeably be the thing that that attracted them the most.  

All of our results seemed to have a positive outlook of our film, with all saying they would watch our film again and stating positive comments such as "good cinematography."

                                        

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation question 2

Evaluation- Question 4.

4- Who would be the audiences for your media product?

Our target audience is aimed at anyone over the age of 15 years old. Our film contains scenes that younger viewers may find distressing, such as violence, threatening objects and language and imitable actions, so we made sure that our media product was targeted at an audience that would be mature enough to handle scenes demonstrating this sort of behaviour.

 However we also aimed our film at a significantly smaller group of people with an interest in psychological thrillers. This audience may enjoy similar films such as Black Swan, Fight Club and Psycho, (films that are complex and clever, but not necessarily easy going or light) and may have a strong interest in films that  delve into subjects like the how the human brain works and how it can be manipulated.

Our film also contains a large amount of cinematography (we wanted our film to look atheistically pleasing as well as have a strong storyline with a twist) so an audience with an interest in the art of photography or filmmaking would also be a possible audience with regards to our media product. Overall, our media product may not fit the mould of a mainstream film and would instead be targeted at a smaller group that would find appeal from a psychosomatic film containing complex shots and a darker form of cinematography.
To get an insight of our target audience, we conducted questionnaires handed out to teens/young adults (people that would fit our target audience.) All of our questionnaires we handed out were returned to us stating that the age certificate should be 15, which is what we decided to give our media product. This confirmed to us that we had chosen the appropriate certificate for our film. We also had some helpful suggestions on how what sound to use for our media product. Since the majority of the audience we handed out questionnaires to successfully identified  our film as in the psychological film genre, song suggestions such as creepy, haunting music building up the pace when action occurred. 

All of our pre post production results correctly identified the genre of our film as a thriller, stating that the music that would be appropriate for our film should be scary and "tense."


Evaluation- Question 3.

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

For our media product, we decided that the best media institution for our film would be Icon Films. Icon Films is an independent, British film distributor, running for over 20 years. We chose it because it's in Britain's leading independent companies, generating in 150m at the box office with a library of 200 titles. This shows that Icon Films is a highly successful distributor, showing that after 20 years, it is still clearly flourishing and is capable of producing a large amount of high quality, renowned films such as Braveheart (winning an academy award for best picture)

and Paranormal activity. These films also have much more untraditional and unstructured storylines like our media product, therefore it would fit much better in a media institution like Icon Films as suppose to something like the conglomerate Big Six films  to have a much more, set, structured layout that is meant to appeal to much wider audiences, unlike ours. We wanted our film to have a much freer storyline that may only appeal to a certain group of people.

We also decided that Icon Films was an appropriate film distributor because our genre would fit along side other films they have distributed. Other examples of psychological thrillers distributed by Icon Films include StoneHearst Asylum, 187 and Edge of Darkness. Our storyline revolves around a young woman who is captured by her ex patient at a mental institution, who tortures her mentally and psychically, therefore our media product would be suitable to be distributed by Icon Films because it again is a similar plot line to other films in that media institution  that have been highly successful.   

Evaluation- Question 2.

2- How does your media product represent certain social groups?

One particular social group we focused on within our media product was gender. The character of O'Brien is in certain ways conflicted with her particular gender stereotype. For example, O'Brien is an incredibly logical thinking character and puts her clear intelligence to good work. In the audio, within the first few seconds of our film, O'Brien tells the audience how she is "renowned for her studies" earning a "first degree" and "top marks." This shows that even within O'Brien's darkest moments, she is still very self assured in terms of her own abilities and does this with no assistance from anyone else, whereas a typical female stereotype may not have this confidence, especially in a male dominated occupation area such as psychology, which is O'Brien's field of work.

Again, O'Brien also challenges stereotypes with regards to her appearance. Throughout our entire film, O'Brien is not dressed in anything revealing, short of tight. She is certainly not sexualised, wearing very little makeup and messy, unkept hair. We made sure of this purposely for a variety of reasons. Firstly, we wanted to make sure that O'Brien's focus was not on her appearance, but rather on what she had to offer for the audience- her story. In addition, it was important to have a character like O'Brien to challenge this gender stereotype, her main focus is on her studies and intelligence, not on clothes on makeup like a typical  female featured in most films aimed at young people. We wanted O'Brien's character to appear far more complex than that. Her attitude was inspired by Calrice Starling from Silence of the Lambs- another career-orientated young woman who dominates her field of work despite her gender.

However,  in other ways, O'Brien is shown to go along side a typical gender stereotype. This is shown in particular angles when H (the male character) is torturing her. In this scene, we used lots of high angle shots, looking down on O'Brien is a vulnerable position, tied up on a chair below him. These shots show that H is in the position of power (also shown using iconography, with H holding weapons such a knives and using them on O'Brien against her will, as well being psychically threatening, engaging with the male stereotype that H is violent and aggressive, using psychical strength to get his own way.) This makes O'Brien look weak against him, fitting to the damsel in destress role seen often in mainstream films. H is also always positioned above O'Brien in the fight scene, showing he psychically and mentally above her and uses this against her. Furthermore, when H first enters the scene, The lighting shadows his face (similar to when Hannibal Lectre or The Joker are in a position of power against their victims.) This makes him look menacing and powerful, and it is clear that he is the authoritative figure in this situation over O'Brien, going along with the stereotype that the male villain easily dominates the female figure in his presence, making her look inferior and frightened. Similar stereotypes are also shown in other thrillers such as Psycho and Silence of the Lambs.

O'Brien being tortured by H.

We also challenged the stereotype of age in our media product. O'Brien is young, yet is still shown to be very high up in work place and not dependant on others. Her clothing is not typical of someone who has only just come out of adolescence, she is in 'old' in her ways and very informed and again sure of herself. Her interests also seem to differ from the generic interests of someone of her particular age range, O'Brien is never shown drinking or smoking, she instead seems to engage in high culture activities. We showed this through the music that O'Brien plays on a record player (as suppose to an ipod or docking station) which appears to be classical music. Again, this is unusual for someone of her age to have an interest in this genre of sound, it makes her seems beyond her years, yet she is only quite young.