Evaluation 2

Role in the film:

 A character similar to the girl in our film opening is Marion Crane from Psycho. Apart from of course being a

female character, there are many similarities. Marion was the victim in Psycho as she was stabbed in the

shower whilst staying at the Bates Motel by an unknown antagonist. She was getting on with her day to day

business, whilst being watched by Norman Bates. This is similar in the fact that our female character at the

beginning of Paranoia, our film opening, is killed by gunshot after being stalked and watched at the stable,

whilst getting on with her day to day routine with her horse. again this killing is done by an unknown

antagonist. Both characters though are oblivious to what is going on around them and only act when it is too

late. Another similarity between the two characters is that their deaths are both the reason as to why the film

even begins, they leave the audience with questions and it set the enigma for the film.


Costumes and appearance:

The characters costumes are nothing a like simply due to their ages. Both characters are young girls but

Marion is more mature in the fact that she is more at the stage of being a woman with a career. Whereas the

girl in our film is at more of a college age. Marion is often seen wearing quite formal, work looking clothing,

such as a long sleeved dress, that is blue in the coloured version of Psycho, with her hair which is quite short

in curls. Whereas the girl in our opening is seen in riding gear, a pink long sleeved top, black leggings. brown

riding boots with her hair tied back in a ponytail.

Representation:

Both characters are seen by the audience as being vulnerable simply because they are female characters and

females are often seen as the weaker sex and in cable to defend themselves. Also the fact that they are both

killed without a fight makes them appear weak and exposed. Another thing that portrays them as being

vulnerable is the fact that both characters are often seen alone, the girl in our opening is only ever seen with

her horse and Marion is only with someone at the start when she is working or when she is talking to Norman

Bates. Otherwise they are both alone when their deaths occur. The coloured version of Psycho Marion's hair is

blonde and in our opening film the girl killed is a blonde female. Now typically blondes are portrayed as being

less intelligent, in comparison to brunettes, quite feminine and attractive. Marion was viewed as attractive by

Norman Bates, we could tell this from how he watched and looked at her throughout Psycho. Then our

opening character could be seen as being quite feminine from her clothing to her hobbies, as horse riding is

viewed by society as being as being quite a feminine sport.

Evaluation 1

                  In which ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms

                                   and conventions of real media products?




Our title

The title of our thriller/crime is called Paranoia. We kept it simple and short so that the audience didn't get too 

much of an understanding over the film through the title, not giving much of the story line away or easy to

guess. We wanted it to have the audience wanting to find out and guess what the story line could be about.

Setting and location

We set our filming in a typical setting of fields/land in open areas. This is how many thriller/crime films are 

filmed also. We wanted to have an over-cast sky as in many films in order to cause that effect of vulnerability 

the skies are usually dull, however we added an effect in to give ours the same atmosphere as that was the 

idea we was going for, this adds danger and creates a more of a negative effect on the situation.

Camera work and editing

We tried to vary our shots as much as possible so that we could show the filming from different directions and 

angles... especially different points of view. One being the general filming and then the other being from a

point of view from someone. We opened our thriller with a camera shot looking out on two horses looking

around outside their stables. After this we see our main character walk onto the yard. We ended up putting an

effect onto our footage as on the days filmed it was pretty bright and didn't give off a dull environment where

crime would occur so we added an effect to make it look slightly less bright. However by it not being the typical

crime setting of police tape and it being all rainy and dull, may have made it more interesting and stand out

because its the car pulling up and the sound of the gun going off which allows the audience to realise the

genre properly.


Title and font type

We spent a lot of time looking around for a font to sit nicely with our opening and also one that isn't always 

stereo typically used in this genre. So we wanted a font that would be effective but different, however we didn't 

want to make it random so that people didn't think it related to genre, which could then cause confusion for

them.We placed the credits in the fonts we had chosen at the bottom of the opening which came on gently and

every few seconds at a rhythm as we wanted to come in steps which is what the girl is taking to get to the field.

With our title we took a while changing and swapping the name of our film about. We decided on the 

name of 'Paranoia' and we chose a font finally. The title of our film is placed at the end to fade from 

the sky into darkness which is a black screen. We wanted it at the end so that it is effective as it can be due to 

having a build up first of all before it properly even works. Our title is a different font to our credits to 

differentiate them from each other as the title is meant to be more eye catching.


Genre and how the opening sets it 


Our genre is crime. When even planning our filming we knew we wanted to include enigma as it is known to be

a convention of thriller/crime. We used a few shots that included signs of danger which should've helped give

that something was going to happen to build something up. this is what creates the enigma for the audience as

they see things there but they are unsure and unaware of why its there.


How characters are introduced


There are only two characters in the opening of our crime. we wanted to introduce Olivia's character on her

own so it was easier to follow her and her actions. Allowing the audience to gain a relationship with her as they

follow her step by step doing her jobs. This also showed that she was alone and almost isolated as she

worked a fair distance with no interference from other humans. We first bring her into shot from no where so

 that it looks a bit strange from the point of view of the audience. Along side this we used shot to keep her face

hidden.

Audience Feedback

After planning our film, filming our film, putting together our film, editing our film and putting 

music to our film, we asked for our audiences opinions and feedback.



We did this through playing the film opening to them once and asking for a positive, then playing it 

again so they could give us some criticism and then we asked for an overall opinion of how they 

thought it went, By doing this it allowed us to get the best outcome from them as they were concentrating on 

each opinion individually so we was able to get accurate feedback back. We asked five different people so

that we was able to get a good amount of different opinions and some constructive feedback to help us on

future pieces and to see where we went wrong for personal references. We asked three students who were in

our class and we then asked two students from outside the class. This was allowing us to get a mixture of

feedback, from both media students and non media students. 


Here is some feedback we received from them following people on our film:

Our first piece of feedback that we received back was from a girl in our class who took media.

She said the following...

'The film opening overall went together smoothly and sat well with the music in the background however the

last few scenes were slightly more cut and choppy, although overall it was a great outcome of the film.'



The next piece of feedback we received was from another student in our class, this time a boy.

He stated the following feedback...

'The film needed slightly more indication on what was happening or more to it of the genre. The music fitted 

really well though and some of the shots were really nicely done.'


We took another lot of feedback from a girl within our class.

The feedback said...

'The shots throughout were a good mixture and some of the shots were really good for showing the

environment, however some shots weren't helpful to what was happening, some shots were more nicely done

than others.'

The film opening in general was put together well.'


We then asked two students from outside of our class so we had some feedback

from non media students. 

This would be helpful to us so that we had a variety of different views,comments and feedback. 

The first piece of feedback we received was -

'It was made well, as it was far from a professionally made one. The shots of the scenery was shown clearly 

and I liked the music presented with it also.'


A second piece of feedback was critical comment which was a good response for us.

They said...

'The film could have been made to be more dull to support the fact that it is a crime/thriller. The dull scenes 

would have helped portray this better as a crime. Apart from that the actual film opening was put together very 

nicely and worked well as a opening for a crime, the shot at the end leaves us/me as the audience hanging.'



All this feedback helped us as a partnership to see if the overall opening was effective or not. The majority of 

the feedback was positive which we was happy with, however the negative last comment about the lighting 

(sunny skies) we were happy to receive as we felt this also however we did add an effect to dull up the sky so 

we was happy with the outcome of lighting in the scenes.

Analysis of film poster

                                                        INCEPTION


This poster has a slogan that allows the audience to read it as if it is a dream or maybe not all necessarily 

right. It allows us to make a decision for ourselves whether the background image is real or not. 

The name of a famous well know actor is placed at the top separately to entice people who of a fan of him 

not just a fan of thrillers which the name of the film may give away. 

From the image itself you can tell something has happened, maybe something spectacular due to the city 

streets empty which would usually be full, giving off a sense of mystery. It also has unanswered questions 

due to the lack of knowledge you get out of the image as he holds a gun but there's no one in sight. Is he 

the one who's vulnerable protecting himself or is he the antagonist.

It states under the title in a medium font "From the directors of The Dark Knight" allowing any lovers of 

that film to have an interest into "Inception".

The lighting through the middle is made brighter and lighter so that he stands out right in the middle of the poster. Is this done for any particular reason ? Is he being shone down onto?

Rating for our thriller

We looked at different crime/thrillers and their ratings which was usually of a 15. We also asked our focus group 

what they'd say a thriller/crime is rated at usually and they gave us an answer of 15. We then looked through 

the different age ratings on the BBFC and from all this information put together we decided on our film being 

certificated at a 15 also this means that the film can only be viewed by people 15 and over. Our film has no 

drug content in it therefore it shouldn't be graded as a 18 as there is no need The BBFC website states that 15 

rated films may include "strong threat and manace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualise". We feel this 

comment describes our film well therefore it is being certificated as a 15.


Also we wanted to target an audience of about the age of 15 and also above to around the age of 25. By giving 

it a 15 certificate will allow our whole target audience to watch it.

Character profiles

We only had two characters throughout our filming of our opening film to make it simple and 
have no complications.One of these characters being a mammal not a human, in fact a 
horse. The other being an average girl going about her daily business.

One character -

Name : Olivia
Age : 17
Part : Main character at the opening

We are firstly introduced to this character when she first sets foot into the gates of the 
location of the stables. As we follow her along the way throughout the opening she's only 
seen from behind or half a head sideways, this is to keep her unseen throughout. She is the 

protagonist. 

The other character -

Name : Rio (horse)
Age : -----
Part : Olivia's horse

This character/animal is not shown a great deal but is there to give an indication as to where this opening is 
situated and also to allow a little bit more mystery into the scenes.

The antagonist is not revealed in the opening, however you can tell that someone else is present during the scene.

Planning for our filming

What/when/how we planned to film


We planned our filming to take up roughly a few hours over a two day period. We

wanted to split our filming into a two day thing. So we decided that on two days we would film and this would

be ideally on days that have similar weather so that the shots didn't look much different. We decided on two

dates and the weather was fairly the same then they'd be the days we would film. We also decided on the

timings of 11 till 1 that we'd film on both days.




How we actually filmed


We first filmed on the 10th and 11th of April where we did a couple of hours on each day between the hours of

11 and 1  so that we could look at what footage we had on the first day and then was able to get the parts

missing on the following day.We then came across our problem that we hadn't filmed the correct way so had to

consider re filing it.


We decided on filming it again on the 14th of April. This time we went down to our location far earlier, in fact

we got there for 8am and stayed there until after lunch time. Doing double the filming in one day in order to get

 it all filmed and edited. Overall we got all the footage we needed on that one day so we didn't need the extra

day to film more.

Costumes

Our costumes were a pretty simple aspect of our filming due to their only being one character. As it 
was a day to day shooting of one person the costume was pretty easy to stick to. 


However due to us filming on more than one occasion the hair of the actress had to be kept the same 

which hardly any difference to ensure that it didn't look weird when put together. The clothing also had to be 

kept similar, if not the exact same, which we managed to do as the actresses clothes were identical in both 

days of filming which was lucky and helped the filming to look better when placed together. 

The footwear of the main girl was also kept the same so that in both shots if the footwear is shown in the shot I

it isn't different, the costume overall wasn't a hard part to keep the same as it was all day to day wear for a

horse rider/girl on a yard. 

We didn't have any special costumes or any made for the filming as it is wasn't relevant due to it just being a 

day to day atmosphere.

The same also applied for the horse as it had to keep the same rug on each day of us shooting so that it didn't 

look odd. The picture below shows what the horses rug was for both days of filming. For the horse it didn't

have much costume as it wasn't shown a great deal in comparison to the girl.






This photo below is a screen shot and displays the costume the actress is dressed in for the duration of the 

filming. She is kept in the same costume throughout the period of filming in the clothes described above which 

is day  to day clothing. She is in a pink long sleeved top, black leggings and a pair of brown riding boots. Her

hair is tied back into a low ponytail and you can see her glasses from a side view.

Editing the Film opening

The editing process took place over a few sessions that usually lasted up to an hour. We struggled to edit as neither of us had much experience with using an editing processor such as iMovie, in 
fact neither of us had really used a Mac Book before so it was all quite new to us.

We spent quite a fair amount of time editing as we had to keep filming extra bits of footage. This because we found that it did not always flow or look that smooth. . Plus we had to film quite a few of the shots multiple times due to filming stuff in the wrong lighting, people were walking into the frame and we did at one point realise that some of the shots were filmed in the wrong frame, vertical instead of horizontal, which made the film look amateur. So we had to film a few times then add this footage to the film.

Then was also the adding of the credits and the title, we had to sort out where each credit would go, to keep them consistent. Adding the music over the top of the footage was quite fiddly as well because again we lacked experience when it came to editing. When editing we had quite a selection of footage that we had to cut down and adjust so that it would fit within the time limit. We also added a few sound effects including a gunshot and music from the iMac sound effects.

The images below one of our editing sessions, in this session we were working around the sound of the opening. So this involved adding extra sound effects, taking sound out and adding the music to help create the tension effect that we wanted.

Analysing the online survey

After making an online survey for people to fill out the results came out quite close. We managed to get 14

peoples responses after having the survey up for just over a week.

 we asked 8 questions:

1) How old are you?

2) What is your gender?

3)Do you like thrillers?

4)What sub-genre do you prefer?

5)What conventions do you expect in a thriller?

6) Do you think a certificate 18 thriller is more intense than a certificate 15 thriller?

7)What do you think helps to build up tension in a thriller?

8) Do you think a 2 minute opening should reveal the antagonist or reveal them later on to create enigma?



1) All 14 people answered this question.The main ages of people who answered the survey were aged between 16-18 years of age.

2) One person did not answer this question out of the 14 people who took part in the survey.The main gender who answered was female. It was double the number of males.

3) Everyone who completed the survey answered question 3 and said that they liked thrillers.

4) Out of all 14 people who completed the survey, the top sub-genre was crime, psychological and then horror, no one suggested any other sub-genres.

5) The conventions suggested that occurred more than once were plot twist, dark lighting, enigmas and jump scares. There were more suggested but these were the the ones that re-occurred a lot.

6) Not everyone answered this question but the 13/14 who did 10 said that they thought an certificate 18 thriller film was more intense than an certificate 15 thriller, whereas the other 3 thought a certificate 15 thriller was more intense.

7) Out of lighting, music and sound 9/14 said music, 3 said sound and 1 said lighting.

Film poster

This is our poster for the film. We used the colours red and black as they are usaully associated with thrillers.

the red splatter was supposed to signify death and of course blood. two things that are often featured

throughout thriller films, especially crime thrillers. The black background was supposed to represent the

emptiness of a persons mind as they are just paranoid about what is going on around them, which is part of

the reason as to why the film was named 'Paranoia'. The poster itself is quite basic, like the opening as this

helps to creates enigma for the audience as not much is revealed, making the audience question what the film

Is about and what could possibly happen.

Film Opening Storyboard

This is a rough storyboard of our film opening.

Facebook Page

This would be another platform that we could use to promote the film. As there are many people who use Facebook on a daily basis, this means that they are likely to tag and tell a friend, so the film gets more promotion. Plus, with Facebook it is easy to share and link other networks associated with the film.

How we resolved problems during filming

Throughout the filming of our opening we encountered many ups and downs however we worked around these 

problems and difficulties.




The first problem we hit was that the first day we filmed was sunny, this is where we decided that if the next 

time we filmed and it wasn't sunny then we'd film it all again to have a less sunny day as it didn't really comfort 

the fact that it was a crime. The next time we filmed it was sunny again, however this was the first time we 

filmed and we had to re film everything anyway due to us filming vertically instead of horizontal. The next time 

we filmed the second opening it was less sunny but still not dull  enough or dark lighting but we stuck to these 

conditions and added filters and dimmed the lighting of the footage  afterwards.

After this was all put together with the effect over the top it was how we wanted it, making it look more 

overcast which is how we wanted it to look in the end. We managed to get over this problem easily.



Then another problem that occurred was that most of our footage was of the back of Olivia's head where we 

were trying to create enigma, but we found that when the footage was put together this wouldn't usually be 

effective but for our story line there is a reasoning behind why the face is never shown. This is only a short term 

problem we was slightly indecisive on whether to change and adapt the face into or not.



Another thing that we struggled with was editing the footage so that it all ran smoothly, we found that we needed 

to film extra bits to add and edit in so that it was not so chopping and ran from a 8 second shot to a 2 seconds 

shot. In the end we managed to make it so that the shots wasn't so jumpy and so that they was more equal 

lengths, as much as we could get them to be.


One other thing we struggled with was finding a soundtrack, in the end we used the sounds effects from 

iMovie its self it was an effective piece and worked well with our footage, plus we will not be copyrighting 

anything as it was already on the system for us to use. This piece out of all the pieces we looked at outside of 

iMovie,  this worked best with our opening.