Question 1 How have we used,developed or challenged thriller conventions in our film
In our film one of the main character's is a secret agent(possibly an intelligence officer like a member of the M.I.6) who is dressed in all black as he kneels down in and touches his spy glasses in order to receive information from his spy glasses. The Agent is dressed in all black, which includes a black hat high tech sunglasses which covers his face. The Mis-en-scene of this character's black attire is that it connotes that this man is very mysterious and discrete since this character is completely silent and his face is bare visible because of his glasses and hat. This shows that we are developing on the conventions of the characteristics of Spies in thrillers as agent characters in thriller films are depicted as being dressed in all black and while very being silent which is what they do so that they are able to discretely blend into their surroundings so that they can carry out their missions unnoticeably and without interferacnce .
However the use of the black could give the impression that this charater is very antagonistic and has bad intentions for the other character as black is also asscioted with negativity.
This is our opening's final shot which features the sleeping man upstairs. This includes an extreme close up of the man's eyes as they immediately open widely , because he was awoken by the sound of the Agent's disc hitting the floor downstairs.The reason we have an extreme close up of the man's eyes as they open is because this it reflects the intensity of this moment and also implies that there is going to be confrontation inbetween these two characters.
This conclusion to our opening is also very effective in terms of thrilling our audience, because it ends on a cliff hanger which means that the audience will be ambiguous as to what will happen to the two characters now that the sleeping man is awake and aware that there is an intruder in his home, which shows that they are now both in danger due to each other's presence.
The shows the Agent holding an unidentified CD disc which he has just taken out of his inner breast pocket and is about to place into a laptop with the intention of either downloading information from it or placing something onto the laptop.
This shot shows that we are including spy fiction elements in our film, such as confidential documents or secret military sevrice information which is implied to be stored either on the CD or the laptop. By introducing this CD , the audience will most likely is assume that it is assoicated with advanced technology or confidentital governmant data meaning that this person could possibly be stealing top secret information and the Mis-en-scene of his black attrie helps to provoke the assumption that he is breaking in this house so that he can steal something from the laptopor carry out some kind of illegal activity.
This still is the Establishing shot of the film. It features the main setting for our film which is a large, wealthy looking brown on a British suburban road. The house is also surrounded by many shadows and this shot has very dim lighting. This because the films current time is very late during in the night and the time and date of when this is taking place can be seen in the form of a 24 hour clock on the left hand corner of the screen.
This shot is an effective way of establishing our film because it gives the audience an immediate first impression about what this film is about and what will be included in it. The introduction of this big white house covered by many shadows and darkness , shows the Mis-En-Scene of mysteriousness and danger. In addition the fact that this house is covered by shadows could show that there will be danger arriving soon , that will take place inside or near this home , which will therefore cause this film's current state of Equilibrium to change to Disequilibrium in which the film will be faced with a dilemma.
This is an example of dimly lit lighting in the thriller film Distrubia:
This still is a shot which was filmed from the agent's P.O.V as he is approaching the house. To the audience , the agent appears to be perceiving his surroundings through green light in the night time as still shows the the environment around the agent through two green lit eye holes.
It is at this point where the audience realises that this character is using sunglasses that are made out of some kind of advanced technology so that he can view everything around him in night vision in order for him to perform his mission, while it is currently taking place in the night time.
This shot shows that we are again developing the conventions of the Spy thriller sub genre by having this agent possess this kind of advanced technology , in order of him to use during his spy mission. It also shows that we have put much thought into making this character a very obvious stereotype of a spy character as possible, by having him being dressed in all black, very silent and having advanced technology in his arsenal. However we are also challenging the conventions of a British spy by allowing this character to have access to advanced technology, which is uncommonly used in British Intelligence agencies like MI6, but is most often used in american spy thrillers such as Mission impossible and Enemy of the State.
Therefore by challenging this conventing we have created a converged stereotype of a spy agent,by having this person carry out his missions in Britain , while also having him use technology that would only be able to be obtained by a spy organisation that is based in the U.S.
Question 2
This still is a shot of our film's S.I.S spy agent, while he is in a crouched position and touches his spy glasses so that he can receive information from them.
This character is shown to be dressed in a full black attire, wearing black night vision glasses that are to designed to appear as normal sunglasses. This person in addition has a neatly shaven goatee and has a very stern and emotionless expression on his face.
We are using this character to represent the social group of individuals who are identified as belonging to the 'A: Upper middle class' status category in terms of the Income bracket. This social group consists of people who have considerably professional occupations that provide very high wages and also require the employee to have some form of advanced education( e.g.a graduate's degree).
This spy can be seen as a way of signifying this status category, since he is shown to have a profession which is seen as being Top management, such as his involvement with the S.I.S, which is a British Intelligence agency that provides the British government with information regarding military operations, national security and many other government related issues.
This still is a shot of the fictional spy George Smiley who is the protagonist of the 2011 spy thriller film Tinker,Taylor,Soldier,Spy.He is portrayed by the British actor Gary Oldman. This character is a British veteran spy who had worked for the M.I.6(which is called the Circus in the film) during the year,1973 in order to preform an espionage mission to track down a Soviet double agent who is undercover as an employee of 'the Circus'.
I myself have not seen the full film of Tinker,Taylor,Soldier,Spy but I have discovered many interesting facts about this character in particular from the film's trailers,film reviews, film websites, and featurrettes based on this character as his interpretation of a spy has intrigued me as it similar to our own interpretation of a spy, while also being unique in comparaison to other spies.
From what I have learnt this character is described as being a man in his 40's with silver hair and is very formally dressed as he is often seen wearing his glasses with either a suit or a trench coat.He's characteristics are described as being very calm, and easy going.In addition he a skill full spy who is very discrete and said masterful in the spy method of integration as he is believed to have a ability for getting people to interact with him the way he wants, so that they tell Smiley exactly what he needs to know.
However Smiley's espionage methods differentiate from the most common conventions of spying methods of other spies. Unlike the more well known famous american spies such as James Bond and Ethan Hunt(Mission Impossible) who both use a combination of their own intelligence along with their physical strength and hand to hand combat skills in their missions, Smiley heavily relies on his conversations skills such as his ability to make people talk to him and his digression.
I chose to compare the intelligence officer in my film to the character of George Smiley because they both share very similar spy characteristics. Both of these agents are depicted as being employees of the same British SIS intelligence agency in two different time periods, with Smiley being active during the 70's and our agent being active during the present day. In addition there are both shown to carry out their espionage missions in a very discrete and silent manner.
This is a shot of a real life MI6 agent Gareth Willliams who was in the news recently. It is very difficult and uncommon for MI6 to be appear in news stories because the MI6 is a secret service organization that carry out there jobs in a very discrete manner without being seen by the general public. However this agent has now become famous because he has recently been killed
Representation of other social groups...
Gender: Our film only includes representations of Males, seeing as though our thriller consists of only male characters.Throughout our film the representations of Males that are conveyed through our characters can be seen as being stereo typical since we show the character of the Spy being very physically active and wearing all black, which implies that he is a very negative and antagonistic character as his clothes are remiscent of what a stereotypically robber would wear(all black attire).Black attrie is also commonly worn by young british black males who are members of gangs and steal other peoples belongings. However the character of the person sleeping is also shown to be a black male , but he appears to be dressed in white. This could be used to show that he is the counter opposite of the spy which would make imply that his character is a decent and mild mannered the victim of this crime if the Spy is a thief.
Class representation: We had established our characters as belong to upper middle class social groups which would make them belong to the classes A or B of the income bracket. Our reason for these social classes in particular is because of the professional jobs they own such as the Spy's involvement with the MI6 organization.The sleeping man would also be shown as being of high status because he possesses advanced secret information that the spy wants to obtain, which could mean that he is equally as professional as the spy or possibly even more professional as he already has something that the agent does not. By doing this we are showing that we are challenging the stereotypical idea of black male as they are most commonly seen as working class or lower working class in various other media(e.g the film Adulthood).
Question 3.I would choose to have my film distributed by Film Four productions.
Film Four is an independent , British media institution. It also owns horizontal integration which means that they produce and distribute their own films, through their production company Film Four productions. They can also exhibit their films through their terrestrial television channel Film Four but this would only be allowed after it has been at least two or three since the film had its own commercial release.
It is a production company that is owned by the British television broadcaster Channel 4which itself is operated by the Channel four television corporations.
Film Four is also shown to be very creative and diverse,since they have distributed many kinds of film genres in the past that range from biopic dramas, comedies, romantic comedies and crime dramas. The there main genres that Film four produces are comedies (East is East, This is England, Shaun of the Dead etc), Biopics/Dramas ( Nowhere Boy,127 hours etc) and Romance films(e.g Slumdog millionaire) .
The majority of films that Film four has produced is often well received by critics and audiences, and have also been nominated and won numerous film accolades. The Film four comedy films such as ‘East is East’ and ‘Four lions’ are both BAFTA winners. Biographical films produced by Film Four such as ‘127 hours’, ‘Elizabeth’ and ‘The Madness of King George’ gained numerous academy award nominations for their acclaimed audience and critic responses. The films ‘The Iron Lady’, ‘The Last king of Scotland’ and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ have all one academy awards in multiple award categories with the latter film receiving the academy award for best film of 2008 along with seven others.
My reasons for choosing Film Four as my film distributor is that many of their aims apply to what I would need for my film. Film Four often aims to support people who are beginners in the film industry, by helping to develop new talent , such as the actors and the film-makers. This would apply to my film because I would be an aspirational beginner in the film industry and it would be very beneficial to me if I were to have any kind of additional film making support in terms of film making advice, investments or encouragement.
They also plan to invest a quarter of a million pounds for each of the planned 20 films that would be distributed by Film Four productions each year. This would mean that my film's fundings would have an additional investment of £250,000.
Question 4.The target audience for my film is people that are aged from teenagers to young adults. This is because is because my film will have a certificate of a 15+ rating. The reason why my thriller film has 15+ certificate is because that the codes of a thriller, such as its mysterious and suspenseful, and sometimes violent themes would appeal to young people the most. Additionally those themes would only apply to young people as they would be considered as unsuitable for young children and people belonging to an older audience would be interested in films that are more formal and sophisticated due to their respective ages.
In terms of identifying my target audience in by using the status classification, I would say that my film's target audience comes under the category of Class E.
Class E refers to people who have either very little or no level of income at all. This category addresses to people who are unoccupied,students, causal workers and pensioners(although this film would not apply to this age group). This is my main target audience as it includes teens such as secondary school or college students as well as young people who work average working class jobs. These people are my primary audience.
In terms of the 'Life Matrix' class system, I would say that my film's audience falls under the category of 'Tribe wired'. This consists of an audience of young people that are familiar with the most recent technology that is being used nowadays(for instance the latest smart phones). This would be good for my film because this audience would be drawn to the elements of spy fiction that my film would contain, such as the advanced MI6 technology that the agent will use in his mission (i.e his night vision glasses, with a built in wireless communicator).
The people in my target audince could also apply to the LifeMatrix category called 'Fun Attics'. These are young people who are very energetic and have ambitious goals that they aim to achieve in their professional lives.In addition because my film belongs to the Thriller genre, my film would be very appropriate for the people that make up this category ,as they are described as being very thrill seeking, which would most definitely appeal to these audience's tastes.
Our intended target audience, that would predominately be made up of teens and young men, would also be drawn to the theme of espionage in the film , such as the character of the agent and his spy mission. This character in particular would be a good selling point for this film to use, as he is like to have an interesting storyline because of his profession.As he is a MI6 agent his role in the film would involve him using various fascinating spy equipment and preforming extremely dangerous and action packed espionage missions, that would surely appeal to a young male audience.
Question 5:The technical devices that we used to engage our audience
- Our film begins with an establishing shot of a large, white suburbian house very late at night time with a 24 hour clock appearing at the bottom left hand corner to show the date and time.The camera then suddenly zooms in to show a man sleeping in his bedroom. This shot is used to set the film in place and establish this as it's introduction location .Additionally this angle is also used to suggest to the audience that this particular setting will be the location for where the catalyst of the film will take place, in which a crucial turning point will happen here, that will cause other events to occur later on in the film.
- During the sequence where the agent is running towards the house, he briefly stops to thoroughly view his surroundings.In this shot it, appears to the audience that he is merely just looking around but then the camera turns into a P.O.V camera angle, in which shows that the agent is seeing perceiving around him green night vision.While this is happening a voice can be heard addressing the man as 'Agent Kay' and gives him instructions to where the agents target is. It is then at this point the audience will discover that this person is a Secret service agent and that he is viewing his surroundings through some kind of advanced Spy technology that is built in to his glasses which allows him to see in night vision and to receive information from his spy colleagues .
- Throughout this opening, there are four times the audience will see the sleeping man in his bedroom upstairs. The first time will be a mid shot that shows his whole upper body as he sleeps, the second and third times will be a close up of the man's face, and the final shot of the man will be an extreme close up of his eyes opening widely. The use of these camera angles in this order, is to help represent the intensity that is gradually increasing in this sequence as the shots of the man get closer and closer to his face. This is until the man's eyes immediately open and the suspense of this scene concludes with a sudden quick movement by the man's eyes which will also be used to surprise the audience as they would not have been expecting this to happen so suddenly.In addition the audience would be thrilled even further by the fact that the sleeping man is now awake because of the other man's presence and now there may be be a confrontation in-between the two men.
- In the section where the agent is picking the back garden lock , a close up of this man with his lock picking equipment is shown as he is unlocking the door. However despite the fact this angle is a close up , this man's face is still very unclear and very unidentifiable.This is because he has a hat on his head and his glasses are covering his face which is keeping it hidden, while this agent is outside in the darkness. We deliberately had made sure this this man's face was very unclear to be see so that he remains dark and mysterious to the audience.
- The shot which involves the agent typing at the laptop was filmed as a high angle, over the shoulder shot with the agent looking down at the laptop.This angle was used to show that the agent is now in control , since he now has access to the sleeping man's computer and is able to do with it whatever he pleases.
- When the audience is first introduced to the sleeping man, they can clearly see that there is a bandage on his left eyebrow. This denotation can be used to signify that this man had previously been in a accident or had a fight before this film begun. This man's injury could've also been deliberately inflicted upon him by an enemy that he could possibly have.All of these theories is good for our thriller as it helps to create suspicion about this characters back story among the the viewers , therefore making them curious and interested in this character.
- The location for this opening is filmed completely in a dimly lit lighting. This includes the darkness of the night time which is shown outside as well as the dark lighting that is visible inside inside the house, because the lights are turned off. The use of this dark lighting is to create a very dark and depressing atmosphere for this thriller. In addition this also represents the kind of emotional mood that this film will be in,which is shown to be very negative to the audience.
Question 6:
The technology that we had used in this product was supplied by our school's media department and had consisted of a digital camera to shoot the film, a charger to re charge the camera's battery and a Tripod. The tripod is very helpful in terms of film shooting as it holds the camera firmly in place while it is filming different heights and angles. It also allows the camera to be perfectly balanced in order reduce the chances of the camera being shaky and keep the footage stable.
However, when our film shooting time was almost done our digital camera had unfortunately ran out of battery.To make matters worse our charger was no longer available to us at the time, because we had to give it back so that another group could use it.
As a last resort, my group was forced to use the camera one of our member's (Cameron Saul) iPhone4, to shoot the rest of the film , within the time period of just three days.
Luckily , the camera on Cameron's iPhone was able to work just as well as the digital camera did because of the technology that the phone uses, such as its 5 mega pixel camera that can record 30 film footage frames per second in HD.
To our advantage we had managed to use the iPhone with the tripod in the same way as we did with the school's camera, by placing it on the tripod's camera platform so that it can be steadily attached to the top and use the handle on the side of the platform to pan the camera in different directions and also tilt it up and down to get both high and low angle shots.The legs on the tripod were also capable of extending to about roughly 6 feet tall , which meant that we were able film shots at different heights.We had found this feature on the tripod to be very beneficial when we were filming our high angle shots, since it had enabled us to use the platform handle to tilt the camera downwards from a very tall height, but still safely hold the camera precisely framed and steady.We had also used this method of filming from tall heights in order to shot the agent's P.O.V shots. We had did this by extending the legs of the tripod until they matched Tyrell's height and the camera platform was levelled with his eyes line.We had made sure that the camera was perfectly matched so that it the angle would legitimately appear as though it was coming from the agent's perspective and then use the camera platform handle to pan the camera left and right in order to add the effect that the agent is turning his head left and right.
We had found this high angle filming method to be very successful as the P.O.V shot appeared very realistic whereas if we filmed this shot by panning the camera left and right by using nothing but our hands with no other kind of additional camera platform, the shot would've came out as being very un realistic and unstable because the shot would've had no stable support.
Question 7:
Over the course of this project, I would say that me and the people in my group have had time to greatly develop on our filming skill, since we had started with the preliminary task.
In terms of how well we had incorporated technical devices such as the camera angles into our preliminary task, I had felt that we had managed to include a few good amount of filming techniques it such as the 180 degree rule which had turned out to be very effective as we filmed the two character's conversation as it helped to retain the task continuity as well as it's realism.
However I did also feel that the amount of camera angles we had used were quite limited and that the lack of a wider variety of camera angles made the final product appear as quite basic.
What I felt we did really well in the preliminary task
- We had managed to include a 'Match on Action' camera technique during the sequence when Marios is walking towards the school yard bench. The first camera match begins with a wide shot of Marios opening the school door to the school yard and walking three steps towards his left.The first camera angle then switches to a different angle. In order to keep the task's film continuity accurate, the second match then begins from left side of the school yard, with Marios taking his fourth step to keep the continuity.
- There is a two shot of both me and Marios from the side of the bench, as we both shake hands and he then sits down on the other side of the bench.
- For the our conversation sequence, we had repeatedly used the Over the shoulder camera shot technique. Throught the whole of these two character's conversation, the camera is constantly crossing over the 180 line which is the imaginary line inbetween the two charcters. This was so that we could film the characters interacting and reacting to each other through reverse angle shots while they both take turns speaking. The 180 degree rule was used so that both me and both knew where to move and react if either one of us was to act a certain way,(for instance if I was to be sitting down near the left side of the bench ,Marios would have to looking in the right direction to see me in a straight direction.
What we could've done to improve our Preliminary task
- We could have had inserted an Establishing shot of where ever this is taking place rather than just starting it in a location that is completely ambiguous to the audience.
- We could've used close up shots for the things for the things that would've been an important part of this task drawn in alot of attention from the audience, such as a close up of the bag as Marios is passing it to me, Close ups on both mine and Marios faces to show our emotions while we are talking. We could've also gradually closed in on our faces during the conversation the represent the conversation reaching its most important turning point , which is the exchanging of the bag and its ambiguous contents.
- We could've introduced Marios' character by using a close up or a mid shot rather than a long shot so that the audience could have a better and more detailed look at him as they are seeing him for the first time. In addition this can be a way to show that this character is of great importance by the camera being closed in on him during his introduction which makes the audience focus on him and then included a wide shot to be able to properly get a good view of the surroundings.
- Once we had watched this video a good number of times, we also had found the camera angles that we had filmmed to be quite shakey and unstable since the camera was not in staedy positioning and were just using our hands to hold the camera. However this was due to the fact that we had only begun filming for the first time and we were only able to use the camera's on our phones to film this task with no other filming equipment meaning that it would ve been likley for us to make mistakes in our filming.
