thriller evaluation

Thriller Evaluation
I feel that my media thriller uses the traditional conventions of a thriller because, it has various methods of suspense, i.e. the first scene of the thriller opening introduces the setting there is a slow panning shot used to introduce the empty park, the audience anxiously wait to see a character introduced. There was added suspense in the thriller as the ‘predator’/stalker’s identity is revealed slowly, first we see footsteps in a park, an extreme close up is used and loud digetic sound of the stalker’s feet crunching on twigs is used to highlight the fact that danger is expected. We also have several point of view shots which is usually common amongst thrillers as this is known to build tension specifically when the audience know that danger alerts, we have point of view shot throughout the film, this is mostly used when the stalker watches the child from behind the bushes. The non digetic sound to emphasise the different points of view is also used, when we are seeing things form the stalkers view behind the bushes very intense harsh but also slow sound is used, but when we see things from the child’s point of view a gentle, soft mellow sound is used like a nursery rhyme, this highlights the child’s vulnerability, I feel that the hit film, ‘http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Dsfout_rgPSA&ei=RurMSfiSL8i4jAef8ozlCQ&sa=X&oi=video_result&resnum=5&ct=thumbnail&usg=AFQjCNFGxz3mH-pvVjtkmuATL2gZ34PPhwThe Shining influenced my thriller as in the Shinning there were various point of view shots used whilst the boys was being followed, this is similar to the young boy being watched by the stalker behind the bushes in my thriller.
In my thriller, there is a young child who the audience is left to assume is to be abducted, but hints are in place which lead the audience to think that the person watching this child intends to cause harm. The stalker is a young black male who in modern society is stereotypically most likely to commit crimes . “There have been many well-publicised cases around the country, where gangs of youths have terrorised housing estates or individual youngsters have wreaked their own brand of havoc on areas.” This quote was taken from :http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1932803.stm.The child is very young and vulnerable, these two roles live up to many common stereotypes.
The best suited media institution for this thriller would be a small independent release in the U.K., this would be because the filming quality would be more suited to this, I don’t believe that the filming equipment provided for us was some thing that could be used to produce a big Hollywood Blockbuster I would also want this to be a small independent release in the UK because I feel that the British public would be able to relate to the thriller more and lots of profit from the thriller would be made because of this, If this was to be released in Hollywoood money would be lost as the settings and scenarios would only pertain to the British public, non of the aspects of this thriller are universal, as a result of this I feel that the best distribution for this thriller would be a small independent release in the U.K.. The equipment for a Hollywood blockbuster would have been far more expensive and as a result of this would have been able do far more developed to do this, we also didn’t have the funding to produce something for the big screen as we are doing this for a college project and a by recent research I have done I have found that Hollywood blockbusters need millions even sometimes billions to produce a film of such substantial quality.
The target audience for this thriller would be a working class teenager (student) living in London, this would be because the cast of this thriller were from the same background, the audience would find the surroundings and the cast familiar and it could be something they could relate to, if an upper middleclass C.E.O. ,living in Kensington was to watch this thriller opening, they may not find it as interesting as there would be nothing that they could relate to, this could include the surroundings, i.e. the park with graffiti or littered floor, they also may not be able to relate to the situation, or this may not have any significance to them. Someone who I feel would be the ideal target audience for this thriller would be a working class teenager (17) living in East London who enjoys watching thrillers or horror movies maybe a girl who is a tom boy.

If this thriller was to become a hit I would choose to advertise it in on public billboards in high streets and prime shopping locations, to attract teenagers. I would also like to advertise my thriller through TV advertisements specifically on channels that are most watched by teenagers, music channels, i.e. mtv base, trouble etc. I would also post messages on websites such as MySpace and face book where millions of teenagers visits and log onto every day. I would also put posters outside prime fast food restaurants such as K.F.C. Mc Donald’s, Burger King were many teenagers visit on a daily basis. I would also want to advertise this thriller opening in cinemas before opening credits of other horror or thriller films.
During the making of this thriller, I have learned how to use a camera and a tripod effectively. To set up a tripod securely (also able to hold a camera), How to film using the five second rule. I have learned how to record regular blogs and to plan the lessons ahead, i.e. during the making of this thriller opening, I have had to meet up with the other members of my group in and out of my lesson time, we have had to arrange locations where we could meet to film the sequence. Then I learned how use final cut pro to upload shot footage onto the computer, then to log and capture, then finally to adjust images in slow motion, to add special effects, to cut and insert scenes into chronological order, and to put appropriate music and sound effects on that match the thriller sequence to create suspense and tension.
Looking back at planning this thriller opening, I feel that a lot has been learned, in the beginning my group and I made a storyboard, this consisted of drawing boxes and putting detailed pictures in chronological order of the sequence we would eventually put together, some things that we planned to put in our sequence, were not actually in our thriller opening, this was for various reasons due to the fact that we only had two minutes to fit everything in, i.e. we originally planned to have the child abducted by the stalker, however at the end of our thriller we decided to leave it to our audience to guess what happened by ending with an extreme close up of the child with a very frightened and shocked look on his face. The audience could either believe that the child had seen something which frightened him or was eventually approached by the stalker, this was also for added suspense. My group and I had expected that two minutes would be more than enough for filming, this was when we were planning ,however when we started filming we found it very difficult to condense the footage we had taken down to two minutes. We were very ambitious and had many good ideas, but when it came to filming, many of our ideas and shots had to be taken out to shorten it. Filming time was less than we had initially expected, we were told that we would need four hours of filming time, instead in total we only did one hour of filming.