Audience Feedback

These are the comments that I got after people watched my thriller:

“It really is disgusting, I don’t know how you filmed something so hideous?!”- Josh Gorman

“The music is really scary, it has a good feel to it with the fast cuts”- Emily Sherring

“It was worrying how I couldn’t look away even though it was so bloody”- Alex Mcgregor

“It was truly rancid!” – Olivia Cox

“It makes me not want to even look at meat again, I think im going to go vegetarian” – Shahla Dowley

“The close ups mixed, fast cuts and the sound track made it really tense and exciting”- Francesca Clarke

I found that over 74% of people who watched the film thought that the all of the close of the gore and meat shots worked really well and made it enjoyable. These were people who were between the ages of 16- 27.
However, some people thought that there was too much gore 16% in fact, which was one of the fears that we had. On the other hand, these people did think that it was effective in making them feel scared and they felt the sound track was effective. These people were also of an old generation, who were not the audience which my thriller was aimed at, so the negative reaction was not a surprise.

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

Since the November Preliminary task I have learnt a lot about how the sophisticated planning of a film sequence is very necessary and must be very in depth. For my preliminary there was little planning but in place for pre-production for example, there was no props needed particularly the other planning needed was getting to people to play the characters, which was easy and basic to achieve. This is compared to the vast planning which was needed to acquire the location of an abattoir, and find an actor who was perfect to symbolise the rugged and evilness of the act being done.


As our thriller had no dialogue it was essential to put across the plot and be sure that could audience understood, by only using shots which showed his evil disposition, sound which reflected this and lighting.


The shots that we used to show this evil disposition were mostly taken from below so that he was in shadow from the light, and from us being below him showed the sense of power which he had. Or in contrast we shot him from a wide shot, emphasising how he is on his own and alienated. This reflected that he must be mentally disturbed in some way to not have friends and be in contact with people. We planned out these shot through storyboarding to make sure he was seen and evil.
This is in contrast to my preliminary which was easy to understand as everything which needed to be said to understand the plot was said through dialogue, furthermore decreasing the amount of planning needed.

This extra planning for the main product showed through the improvements in camera work. Comparing the preliminary to the main task, you can see a large difference in the understanding of lighting to put your message accoss for example, as the prelim mostly has natural light which does the reflect the pressure and scariness which is trying to be put across. Whereas in the main product I used artificial studio light to make sure the light was consistence and showed the change between situations from being in the normal world(outside the butchers) to being in his distorted sense of reality inside the studio.

The main task also exercises more of the skills needed to make a good thriller and showcases our skills. This is represented on how we made sure we kept the 180 degree rule. This is furthermore shown on how we have kept varied shots and different angles.

I think what has adapted and improved the most is the use of sounds as instead of keeping the sounds which were recorded on the day we overlaid sound effects to enhance the ambient sounds made on the day, for example by using sound track pro we made the sound of the Clever smashing down on the table more enhanced and dramatic. Furthermore, by having a backing track of an AC unit to emphasise the fact our character was isolated and in a secret room.
My ability to use the technology at hand has also increased thoroughly as for the preliminary task the skills needed were only basic editing skills, but in the main task I had to be able to use final cut pro properly to make an quick editing film which didn’t look forced and that all of the shot matched up. The editing style was also a lot quicker than the preliminary as we wanted to show this sense of intensity. I also had to learn how to use sound track pro to add an ambient sound and furthermore increase the understanding and look of the thriller.

Overall I have come on leaps and bounds with my understanding of the processes which are needed to make a thriller of good quality. I am very happy with the finished product as I think it show cases my skills, and I really enjoyed executing those skills.

Task 6- what have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Task 5- How did you attact/address your audience?

task 5 Addressing An Audience

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Task 4- who would be the audience for your media product?

A audience is a primary group of people that something is aimed at appealing to. A target audience can be people of a certain age group, gender, marital status.
Our thriller's target audience is between the ages of 18 - 40. This is because of the film being lurid and horrible.


Furthermore when choosing a distributor such as Lionsgate there movies such as Saw already have an audience and due to our thriller being of similar values, could attract that audience.

In addition, the product represents the working class as our character can be related to by the people in this class. This is mainly because of his profession, as he is a butcher which is a job occupied by someone in the working class.

However, it would be aimed at a middle aged audience as well, the teenage age group would be the thrillers main audience as the teenage age group would be interested in the horror factor of the thriller. Furthermore the fact that it could apply to them, as a food scare is quite a universal problem.
This is also how an older generation can relate to the movie as a there are constantly concerns in the media of food scares e.g. salmonella, foot and mouth and bird flu. This gives this phenomenon a twist as the meat farmer is deliberately trying to infect the meat as opposed to it being a virus “accidentally” passed through meat. In addition there is not a restriction on which gender this movie is aimed to as it can apply to all meat eaters. However, it could appeal more toward men as it is full of gore, arteries and blood.

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

The media institution which we thought would distribute our media product would be ‘Lionsgaate’. This decision was mostly due to the fact that the some of Lionsgate most profitable and well known films are films which are in our genre; these are films such as Saw and Hostel. These films represent a certain type of demographic of people who will watch movies with concentrated gore. The fact that Lionsgate would distribute our movie could also attract this Demographic as it is a similar movie to the ones which were so popular, giving the movie an aspect of pre-selling.
These movies are similar to my product as they have the main attraction point of heavy torture porn, although unlike movies like ‘Saw’ the torture is of meat and not people.
Our film could be exhibited in a similar way to these popular films, by showing bits of the gore which is to take place in the film to attract a certain type of audience who like these films. It has proven to be a popular genre and many people enjoy it, as Saw is now on its 5th franchise based only on the fact that so many people will pay to watch such heavy gore, this bodes well for our film due to its similarities.

Lionsgate also have similar ideals as our thriller does, as they focus mainly on the gore, blood and torture than of the actual plot in the opening sequence to attract the audience and keep them interested.
This is why I think Lionsgate would be the best distributer for our product to help it reach its maximum potential. It also has a twist on Lionsgate essential movie plots as instead of the gore and torture of people it is the massacre of animal meat and the death that is coming to whoever eats it, giving it a unique selling point which, in my opinion would appeal to Lionsgate.

Task 2- how does your procuct represent social groups?

Different social groups are represented in different ways due to the way they are seen through the media. For example the working class are generally seen through the media as uneducated aggressive thugs. An example of this is the movie “This is England” which portrays most of the characters this way. Our character is also representing the working class as he is shown as evil and destructive.
The product we have chosen to develop also represents the working class as our character can be related to by the people in this class. This is mainly because of his profession, as he is a butcher which is a job occupied by someone in the working class. He would furthermore fit into this social group as it would appeal that he didn’t go to University and suggest that he worked at his trade, as he seems to be quick skilled and practiced at this.

This means that this product would mostly appeal to a certain group of people as they can relate to the character and he would seem realistic, not seen as a role model persona but someone who that could understand.
However, this product could also relate to someone of the middle class, not because they can form a relationship and understanding of the character but due to the fact that the meat being infected is being sold as “Farm Fresh Best Quality Organic meat”, these high standards of good meat means that it will be expensive, therefore potentially bought by the middle class.
This suggests that the people who are buying this “high quality” meat are people who want to eat well and healthily and who have the money to do so. On the other hand the people in the middle class are somewhat being ridiculed for having little understanding from where they meat is really coming from, and just believing whatever they are told.

However, due to the gore this product could attract may other social classes as they are interested in the food scare aspect as it is a universal problem.

This implies the type of people who prefer to buy organic and feel 'safe' in the false hope that they are eating well because it is 'organic,' this slightly mocks these middle class people. Mainly the lower-middle class is represented in the our media product, however, I hope that many more social groups will be eager to watch it, because of other reasons.

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

When finishing our editing process we decided that we wanted to you a method of fading the credits into the sequence so that it did not cut up the sequence and make it jolted, we wanted it to be smooth and subtle to emphasis these characterizes which are present in our character. This also kept the momentum of the thriller going to increase the intensity of the moment. Furthermore to keep the focus on the action at hand we placed the credits in the corner of the frame. This allowed us to keep the same tempo of music and not add length to the sequence which was not necessary. For example this screen grab of the sequence, shows that the credit does not distract away from the intensity of the moment.

This conforms to the convention that what the film is trying to portray is of the most important and nothing should distract away from this too much. Furthermore the use of two layers in the credit makes the contributor to the film stand out but doesn’t take all of the focus, due to the smaller font making it a less aggressive attention seeking aspect of the shot.
This idea conforms to other conventions of this genre as what is on the screen is supposed to grab the attention of the audience and keep them entertained, which this shot of lungs and heart upholds and the gore is more intriguing than the credit.

We continued this convention to the film through having a bold title at the end once the sequence was over, and we wanted the audience to look at the bold title.

These smooth credits shows the contrast between the fast editing and allows the sequence not to feel to jerky and rushed but to still build tension. This also reflects again on the mental stability of the man as the smooth credits show a certain saneness and certainty, compared to the sharp cuts and the aggressiveness of the act being done. This gives of the impression that this man is obviously mentally unstable as the composition between the credits and the editing gives of the impression that he thinks what he is doing is right, when it is clearly wrong.


Our character conforms to the stereotype of the tall, dark scary man, which is so often played in the thriller genre as it is seen to be menacing and dangerious. An example of this is Michael Myers in Halloween.



Our sound slightly challenged the normal conventions, as instead of using a “spooky” score we made our own through making an underlining sound of day to day noises and just emphasising them when the pace increases. We also added in overriding sounds when there is a big impact, to keep the audience on edge.

For example when the heart slammed down there was a sudden boom to made for a more dramatic effect.

Account of shooting day

Our shooting day began in the edit suite to gather everyone and talk once more about the aim of what we wanted to achieve. We also made shore that the studio was prepared and had the lighting which was needed to ensure a creepy atmosphere. In addition, that we had all the props and costuming set up in the studio for when we would return from our location to shoot the majority of the sequence.
We also called the location to confirm the time that we were coming.
Our storyboarding which we had done for the location shooting was slighting different to the finished set as we decided not to include the interior of the butchers so not to cause offence or give them a bad name. We then continued on to our location.
Our location was exactly what we needed as it had a backdoor which was perfect for our character to walk through. Due to his mysterious nature he would not walk through the bright colored shop front, he walked through the grungy back door. We used a pan shot to follow him as he walked through the back door, to emphasis that he was what our sequence was revolved around.

We thought we would encounter some difficultly with getting to our location due to the snow which was in the vicinity of our school but on the day our shooting the snow was gone, which was a huge relief.
One of my favorite shots of the location is one that is shot in the inside of the walk in freezer, not because of the angle or the position of the camera but because of the content that was in the shot as I felt that the shot of hanging meat added to the character of our sequence as it was scary and very real. I also felt a sense of accomplishment within this shot as I organized the location and it was beneficial to see that it was what we needed for the ambiance of the sequence.

These shots then continued on to the shots in the studio to create a link that the masochist is walking into a secret back room to the butcher.

We used certain props to emphasize our characters masculinity and spooky nature e.g instead of using a normal kitchen knife we decided to use a rusty old meat clever.

Our character also emphasized the idea of mystery and horror which we were trying to put across. He fit this idea by being tall, manly and middle aged exaggerating the stereotype of the tall evil masculine male he also had a beard covering a majority of his face, symbolizing that he is hiding something adding to his mysterious nature.

We furthermore adapted this secretive character by having lighting which was very low, adding shadows to his work and his features, also due to it being artificial light. This was beneficial to the shoot as it gave a consistent light and it also showed the contrast between the normal world with real light compared to the artificial light, and his distorted sense of reality in the studio.

My role in the production of the film was producer and therefore I arranged all of the props and organized the location. I struggled a little with getting a needle due to my age so I had to arrange my media teacher pick one up and be in charge or it. I also struggled at first with finding a location as not many abattoirs where happy to have a camera crew near all of the raw meat in the room, but after vigorous searching I found an abattoir in Gomshall. They had all that we needed and were very happy to let us use their walk in freezer and exterior of the shop. In the actually filming of the thriller we all took turns doing the different rolls and camera man, sounds and continuity.
I feel we all worked effectively as a team, and had a close to fair share of responsibility. Therefore I am happy with the end result as it reflects the hard work and planning which was executed on the shooting day.

Editing Process

We started of our editing process by logging all of our shots to establish which shot where taken in the location and, which shots we needed to edit in to make it clear that he was going through the butchers into a back room so that he could infect the meat. However when it came to the shots of the cutting of the meat we did encounter some difficulties as we did have a lot of shots which looked very similar to each other, and therefore we had to try and find different angles and shots of different meat to try and make the cut look interesting and not repetitive.

However, the way that we shot our sequence on the day was beneficial as we did it in the order of the story so it helped us establish how we wanted the end result to look.

Some of the other problems that we encountered were that due to wanting certain edits between shots to be quick and jerky to increase the intensity, we had to edit alot of shots together. The difficult aspect was that it wasn’t always easy to match the shots so that it flowed, therefore we had to try out many shots before we got a couple which went nicely together.

Although, once we got into the rhythm of editing and how to do it time effectively getting it the way we wanted it, i think all of the effort paid off as I am pleased with the final cut

Effictiveness of the pre-production

Our pre-production was very useful as it allowed us to have a well planned and time effective shooting day, due to a thorough organization.

In my opinion the organization which helped us the most was our shot list as it helped us establish the best angles in which to achieve the “spooky” atmosphere we wanted. It also helped us asses the best shots in which to show of our skills. Furthermore the props and costume list helped us to be prepared and not delay shooting to find what we needed as we already had the props to hand on set.

I would say one of our weaknesses was not anticipating the smell which the meat would exude, as it would have been more pleasant to have a mask or a perfume spray to cover it up.
This experience of film making was very beneficial as it opened my eyes to all the planning which is needed. It also taught me that it is good to have a high-quality crew who you get on with around you as it is useful to have people on the same page as you who understand the aim of what you are trying to achieve.

Our shooting Schedule

9:00- Meet in the edit suit to gather our group for the day, call our location and confirm the time in which we where coming and ensure that we had gathered all of the props which we would need that day.

9:30- Left to travel to the location.

10:00-10:30- arrive at location to shoot the external and internal of the butchers, and also aquire some shots of the meat which was supplied by the butchers.

12:00- Return to school to shoot the main proportion of our sequence in the studio.

1:30- Break from filming for lunch.

2:00- Return to filming.

5:00- Finish filming and clean up the studio and pack away camera equipment.

The shooting schedule was important as it was vital to know when we were going to our location, for example as there was only a certain time in which we could do our filming as so not to disturb the distributing of their products to customers. It also helped us keep on time for all of our shooting so that we finished on time.

We also had a shot list:

Pan/Tracking shot of the interior of the butchers.
Medium close up of meat hanging (in post production put on titles)
Medium shot canted angle of hands picking up box
Wide shot of door and man entering the frame with the box in his hands
Extreme close up of bloody hand opening the door. The handle is left bloody.
Medium close up on hands holding box of meat whilst walking
Wide shot of meat being tipped onto dirty work top.
Wide shot of other worktop with rusty knives on.
Close up of hand picking up rusty knife
Medium close up from high angle of rusty knife and dirty hand cutting meat on work top.
Blood is dripping off the worktop, medium/wide of floor with blood spilling out a title.
Close up of dirty boot walking across and messing up the title, follow feet, and pan up the body to the hands injecting the meat.
Side shot close up of meat being injected by dirty syringe and hand
Wide shot of hand throwing the syringe backwards
Wide Shot of the syringe landing on a worktop with lots of other syringes, blood, knives.
Cut to medium close up of the man packaging the meat (on the bottom right hand side of the box is a labelled saying “Farm Fresh” “Best Quality Organic Meat”)
Close up of the cardboard box being closed, and another title is seen on the box
Medium shot of him picking up the box
Side wide shot of the van, man is seen walking into frame and chucking the meat into the back of the van.
Wide shot of the back of the van, he closes the door, and another title is seen on the door
Extremely wide shot of the van driving off into the distance for a long time
Fade out to a close up shot of the packaged meat on a shelf
Zoom out to see there is loads of meat like it. (seeing the logo)

However, on shooting day we didnt stick exactly to this we more used it as guideline to what we wanted to achieve.

Casting

The character which we need to cast for are thriller was a man, as men in the media are portrayed more as the villain although in real life this is not always the case. We furthermore exploited this stereotype of the tall evil masculine male, by using a teacher from our school who previously has had experience in acting and also worked in butchery for a while and therefore had the skills to handle knives and chop up meat. One of the main focuses of our thriller was our characters hands and how he so gruesomely massacred the meat. Our actor had very big hands emphasizing his masculinity, in contrast to if he had small delicate hand he would not be seen as very powerful and dangerous which is how we wanted our character to be been.

Location

I organised the location of a film as it was vital to the appearance you want to achieve. The majority of are thriller was shot in a studio which was provided by our school. We accomplished a mysterious and sinister atmosphere by having a small dark room which had minimal – dim lighting and muddy blood stained walls. The room had a arrangement of props such as the box full of meat, a clever and other parts of animal for example piigs heart and lungs.
We also needed the exterior of a butchers shop and the inside of a walk in freezer so we acquired a location in Godalming which had all of these things. This location was perfect as it had a back entrance for our main character to walk through, which supports his mysterious nature. The inside of the abattoir was larger but appeared smaller than it was due the hanging meat around the room.