Genre Research (Thriller)

 Thriller research:

Common Lighting: Thrillers are usually pretty dark. The best thrillers make good use of bright scenes to have added effects. 

Common Camera Angles: Thrillers use quick jump cuts to show suspense and wide shots to set scenes. In pulp fiction you see many two person shots and zoom close ups to show personality. 

Common Movements: zooming in on certain objects for symbolism is common in thrillers. 

Mis En Scene: Costumes: Normal clothing can make a thriller look more realistic. This allows people to associate thrillers with real life and make it more personal. Actors: they use people who can really create emotion in people. Makeup: they use fake tears or blood to show physical pain or emotion. Props: They use breakable props in order to not hurt anyone. Setting: Usually dark and changes ending up being light near the end.

Elements of Genre: Tend to have a lot of emotional plot points and try their hardest to evoke emotion by using things like children or characters you can relate to.

Common Sounds: Use songs that create emotion in people with things like violins or pianos. In fight scenes use upbeat fight music. And they sometimes use eerie sounds to create a sense of uneasiness.

Examples: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects

Appeal: I love how thriller makes me sit on the edge of my seat. The suspense you get from thrillers is unparalleled and even beats out horror in my opinion.

Dislikes: One gripe I have is the ratio of time to reward. I think time is extremely important in thrillers. Since I have limited time it will be much harder to create an impact.

Genres I would like to research

 After doing some thinking, I have come to the conclusion of what Genres I might want to do for my project. I am looking for something that will captivate an audience rather than something slow. I think that I need to optimize my time with the 5 minutes I have. The most important thing is efficient time management to get all the points I want across. The first Genre I am thinking about is a thriller. I would do a thriller because thrillers are great for creating an emotional mood and I liked using wide shots in the previous class. I would be the most familiar with this one. Another genre I am thinking about is a mystery. I have been reading a lot of mystery novels recently which has piqued my interest in this genre. The mystery might be a bit harder to fit in the 5-minute timeframe though. I am up for a challenge, so this is probably my top choice right now. The last genre would be more of a serious epic. I have already done plenty of research on epics from the previous year. My favorite movies are epics and I enjoy the genre the most out of any. However, epics are pretty broad which might be off-putting. The high stakes and conflicts of an epic make it extremely exciting though. I will do more research before I decide on a final genre to choose. However, right now I am leaning towards mystery.

Pitch

 A group of friends explore a creepy forest and mysteriously die one after another

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This is our group's pitch for our film.  This pitch may sound similar to the pitch of Nicholas and I's Media Studies AS level film introduction.  That is because it is.  We really enjoyed the idea we had for our last project and want to expand on it.  Kyle, our third group member was also involved in our film introduction from AS Level.  He was an actor in the film.  In fact, he was the actor with the most screen time.  The short film will have the genres of mystery and horror.  We plan for the tone to be serious.  Hopefully, even scary.  There are many ways we have thought of making -the idea from our AS Level project more in-depth.  We do not plan to use footage from the last project.  Instead, we will simply use the idea as inspiration and make something new from it.  Perhaps we will make one of the students in the group the culprit.  Or, even the cameraman.  Our group has toyed with that idea a lot and we like the mysterious nature of the idea.  However, we have yet to figure out how to implement it.  All in all, we have very ambitious ideas for our short film.  We are also very excited to work on it together.

Other ideas we had were "man drinks mysterious potion at 3 am and becomes a creature from a different world" and "a boy is an unwilling accomplice to his father's murders and has to choose whether to save the next murder target or not"

Group Blog

 When deciding who to work with for this final project I had a lot of options. I was planning to work with someone who switched out of the class last minute. This caused me to search for people in other classes. After some deliberating with others I have decided to work with Grant Cippolone and Nicholas Arnold. I decided to work with them because I helped them with their move introduction project. I was the main actor and I also filmed some scenes for them if they needed an extra hand. Grant got an A for the class! I think if I am able to be more of a part of the process we can shoot for an even better project. I have known these two for a long time.

 I met them in 9th grade and we have worked on many projects together. Furthermore, we all live relatively close to each other. Nicholas has a car and can drive us to a different spot to film. This will be extremely useful when we have to film a specific scene. All of us have also been thinking of what to do for this project for a long time. We actually were even thinking of it before the summer! Because of this, we are all very excited to work together on this project. I also think that we can be very efficient when we work together. We have good ways of communicating quickly and none of us slack off. Everyone does the work designated that way we will not fall behind. For all these reasons, I have chosen to work with these two for the final project. I am sure we can make something better than ever before.

Introductory

Hi, I am Kyle Weiner and I am excited to be back for the A-level portion of Media Studies. It has been a while since I did anything for media studies and now that I am back in school I am ready to learn again. I will be making a film project better than the previous years. Last year I acted in an AICE media final project so it isn't like I left the class completely. My hopes for this year include learning how to market a movie. I feel like that is an extremely important part of the process. If we learn that I am sure it will be easier to make our 5-minute long film. I don't know what genre I want to do yet. Last time I made two dramas so I probably won't do that again. I also did a thriller and a mystery however I still am interested in those.

My taste in films has changed a bit since I last took the class. I am more interested in psychological films rather than action. I think this will cause me to direct much differently for the final project overall. I think a fault I had with my last productions was that they didn't appeal to enough audiences. This year that will change for the better. I think that this project will turn out better than my other projects because now I have had experience. I also had a full year to reflect on what I could have done better! AICE Media was one of my favorite classes so I am glad to be back. This year I cannot wait to try my hardest and create something awesome. I have already planned my final project and am excited to start working on it.

Audience and Institutions Practice Essay

“Asses the importance of marketing in the media area you have studied.”

                Marketing in film is the most important leading factor when it comes to its release. If the marketing was bad, the movie will bomb even if it’s good. Just because a few people like the movie and really enjoy it, if people don’t want to watch your movie beforehand you are not going to turn up a profit or be successful. When looking for a movie to watch, I do not look for one that I’ve never heard before, but one that “was supposed to be good” that I may have heard people talk about.

                For example, the movie “Ugly Dolls” had an abysmal marketing campaign. Their entire hook was that the voice actors for the animated films were celebrities, other than that they put in little effort. The bland posters, bad trailers, and bad overall message led to the movie not making any money; even after being carried by a large partnership between STX Entertainment and Alibaba. On the other hand, Guardians of the Galaxy V2 had a near-perfect marketing execution. According to Filmmaker Marcus Taylor, “Timing is incredibly important – you must build up as much hype in the short space of time leading up to and around the launch as possible.” and Guardians of the Galaxy V2 did just that with visually appealing posters and a plethora of cross-promotions like custom Dairy Queen cups, or Geico using the character Groot in their ads. The timing with the marketing and their teaser trailer to hype fans up was impeccable, being short enough for people to speculate what will happen in the new film but long enough for people to remember it when it finally came to theaters. The movie was a wondrous success.

                Another big part of marketing is the research that goes into it. You must know your audience better than they know themselves. Once a film is usually completed for the first-time t is screened to a test audience of varied ages, ethnicities, genders, and more. Film studios are eager to set up these screenings as much as possible see who their movie will appeal too. This type of research would be popular for big-budget films such as “The Lego Movie 2” where the first movie may have been a big hit, but it was too divided from adult and kids fans. After advertising on kids toys and ads for adults like furniture and cars the movie decided to pursue a more kid-friendly route than the original. According to its box office, it did quite worse than its predecessor; this may have been because it was aimed too much at kids. A successful example is “Black Panther”. Black Panther had its first big marketing ploy after having its début trailer at a big NBA game. Not only was this good because of how many people were there, but it also centralized on their type of audience. Another way to reach their audience was through their soundtrack, focusing on artists that their demographic would listen too on their own time. Black Panther then became the most successful superhero movie based off of statistics in 2018- something it couldn’t have done without marketing.

Films that don’t abuse marketing to the fullest extent are just hurting themselves. Alan McGlade says that “marketing is so important to a film, that a company will pay one dollar for marketing for every two dollars spent to make the actual film." Companies want people to watch their movies, and without any good marketing strategies, it will never become a success.

24 Extract Essay

I believe the director is trying to convey the distrust between the two characters, and itself as a theme overall in the extract. In the extract we see a woman being interrogated about a bomb and information that she only knows. However, this interrogation goes nowhere as both the interrogator and interrogated both do not trust each other. Another example of distrust in this extract is with the people watching the interrogation on camera. It signifies distrust of the man and the other workers, as they are keeping an eye on him.

The scene begins with the interrogator entering a room filled with heavy breathing and anxiety in the air. It pans to a security camera, letting us know that the interview is being recorded. The mood is being set in these scenes, as they exchange glances and the interrogator cautiously puts down a packet of papers. This creates a feeling of unease and seriousness. Next, the woman glances at a clock helping convey her emotions of being anxious, this is filmed with an eye-line match. The woman quickly explains her demands in a serious tone, without any sense of relaxation. We next see the first instance of distrust; the woman will not tell the man who her contact is. As the conversation continues the ambiance gets louder and louder, and so does the score. This shows build-up and pressure in the conversation. The next example of distrust is the man not letting her leave until she tells him what he wants to know. The actor increases in pace as he walks around the room, showing impatience and hinting on an outburst if she keeps refusing his demands. The editing during the dialogue has intense shadows, shaky camera movement, and many jump cuts. Reason for this being the fact that it gives an intense mood to an extract befitting a thriller. After more demands are denied we see the interrogator's first outburst; He picks up a table and throws it into the side of the room, demanding that she needs to stop wasting his time. The perspective is from an over the shoulder shot of the woman, and we can see her shake as he throws it. The director was trying to convey that she had no power in her situation and could not stop him if he did anything rash. The director explains this to the audience with the next lines of dialogue. There is a shot-reverse-shot with the people watching the interview from the camera at the beginning, letting us know that they do not trust the interrogator to be calm after what they just witnessed. Next is the climax of the scene, where the woman claims he would have to follow her lead. This is her breaking point because as of this point, he had all the power in the conversation. This plays out with both their reactions in consecutive jump-cuts, showing the calm before the storm. Right after, he charges at her and we hear the diegetic sound of the chair squealing as it slides on the floor. This is a great sound effect, as it conveys travel and the force, he is pushing her at. Next, a split-screen is shown of the two pushed into the wall and the people outside rushing to resolve the issue. During this the incidental music reaches its climax, creating a feeling of impact and violence.  This climax is done well as the interrogator solves the issue of distrust by deciding to do whatever it takes to get the answers.

All these examples work together to create the director’s vision of distrust towards each other. The way they act shows that they do not feel like creating friendships and only want to benefit themselves. The editing creates a violent and disliking atmosphere between the characters, and the actions showed the anxiety between the two. What is most important is after all the interrogators' insane scare tactics and violent methods, she still stands her ground and sticks up for her demands.