Final Thriller Opening

I am now closing my blog, i hope that you enjoy looking through our thriller opening.
Here is our final product. Enjoy!

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

Evaluation quesion 7

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6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Here is a video of me and my group talking about the different technologies which we used in the making of our thriller opening:

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Being teenagers ourselves, it gave us an advantage of knowing the best ways to attract and adress our target audience. Below is a video of our opening titles and annotations of ways it will atttact and adress our target audience:

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

As a group, we decided that the target audience which we would be aiming our media product at would be, teenagers to adults ranging from 15 - 23 as we are teenagers ourselves and know what our audience would be looking for in a film.
To find out what our target audience would be most interested in, we had to carry out some research to find out the ideas which they think would work and not work. As a group we interviewed a number of people from differant age groups to find out:
- What they like about films
- What they thought of our ideas
- Their thoughts on films in general
This was a very important part when making our title sequence.

By completing questionnaires and interviews on our target audience, it allowed us to receive feedback on the ideas of our film, for example firstly we was going to use a female stalker however most teenagers which we interviewed thought that this wouldn't work as everyone is use to seeing a male stalker.
The type of questions which we asked our audience were questions which helped us find out what they enjoy doing on the weekend, what types of films they enjoy, where they mostly watch films and general information on themselves.
Here is a questionnaire which we asked some of our target audience to fill out before we conducted our opening:


Witth the answers which we received from these questionnaires, we took into consideration whether teenagers would be interested in our idea and would want to watch it or not. For example, we asked whether a female stalker would be a good idea and the majority said no, we then listened to this feedback and changed our stalker to a male.

Before we made the thriller opening, we made an audience profile which you can see below:

Target audience

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Below i have interviewed keeley, she is a teenage girl who fits our target audience and she told us a little bit about what she enjoys doing aswell as some information on herself:


Our target audience would want to watch our film as we know best what they want to see in a film. The main characters in our films are teenagers, our target audience can relate themselves to the characers which makes them more involved in what's going on in the film.

The reason why people would want to watch thriller films is for entertainment as it leaves them scared and in their seats, making them watch more. It is important that thriller films send out a sense of thrill, this is what engages the audience into watching the film. When the audience turn off the film, they feel more secured as the film is over and a sense of safety comes across them, for example if they was watching 'the ring' they would now not feel as scared as the film is over but may still feel tense when the phone rings as this is the main storyline to the ring.

Maslow's Hierarchy



 Maslows hierachy is a theory in psychology which i can relate to my thriller opening. I think that 'The Unknown' can be most related to the 'safety and security' section of the heirachy as it shows that the stalker has dominant behaviour due to the way he acts towards the girl.
As we have a dominant stalker in our thriller opening, it shows that the safety and security of the teenage girl is very low and shows that girls are main targets for male to stalk as they tend to be weaker.
The girl does not have much security in the thriller opening because through the opening, we see her on her own and walking through a park. Parks are known for alot of 'muggings' and other crimes to take place in and are not safe these days which shows again that she does not have much security.

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

Evaluation question 3

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Evaluation 3 by ChloeG

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I played the role of the teenage girl who gets stalked throughout the film however isn't very aware of her stalker being around. I decided to choose the girl out of 'prom night' which my character is mainly like as we are both young girls who are fun, always with friends and up for a laugh. 

Both of these characters are blonde, which could be put across as a stereotyped 'dumb blonde' as they both get obvious clues that they are being stalked but yet pay no attention. Both of these young teenage girls take pride into what they look like as they are both stylish and pay close attention to how they look.

Teenage girls are usually represented in films as the main target for something bad to happen to as they are still young and not fully aware of what could go on around them. This shows that young girls are both the protagonists through out the film as they are the ones who are getting stalked during the film. This may show that the representation of women are victims as they mainly get stalked.
Both males in our films are the antagonists as they tend to be more intimidating toward girls and more stronger to be able to hurt females.
The costumes which have been used for my character and the dress sense which has been used for Britney Snow shows two different sides of teenagers. For example, during my film i am wearing a casual day outfit which our target audience tends to usually wear however in 'Promnight' we see a more glamorous side to teenagers and how the like to enjoy themselves.
We used different shots to show the representation of our character in a way of telling our audience about the particular social group, for example, by using a long shot of me walking to the park, it shows the audience the sense of style of teenagers. Having an over the shoulder shot of the stalker watching the girl walk into the park shows that the girl is vulnerable as she does not see the stalker, and also that she is not aware of what is around her.
Here are some print screens of the different shots to show the dominance of the stalker:

We decided to use a night vision filter to film the scenes of the teenage girl in bed, the reason why we filmed in night vision is to empahise on the fact that the girl is in bed and is having a bad dream of the stalker, stalking her. By the girl having a bad dream and showing this in night vision makes her seem scared as it is important enough to be shown in the thriller opening.

Like Prom Night, we have a male who is playing the role of our stalker. We make sure that the males identity is hidden at all times which makes the character seem more mysterious. Having a male as our stalker connotes the dominance which male tend to have over females as they tend to be more stronger than females. We have shown that the male has 'power' over the teenage girl as we see her having bad dreams of the male and also we see shots of the stalker looking at pictures of the young girl, this shows that the stalker is obsessed with the young girl.

Below is the trailer to Prom Night:

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

Frame 1

This here, is our production logo of 'swivell productions'.  By the writing being on a black background with blue writing, it gives off to the audience a cold mysterious feeling. Swivell productions comes across as a quite feminine name, we decided that it should sound quite feminine as it is a film which is aimed at mainly girls and we are girls ourselves.

We made sure that the way the title enters is different to our opening titles as it is our production name and not introducing the cast.

Frame 2

The second shot of our opening sequence introduces our main character who will be playing the victim through out the rest of the film. It is important that the victim is introduced in an early stage of our opening titles as we want the audience to know about the characters. We decided that we should film this shot in 'night vision' as it emphasises on the girl sleeping and having a bad dream which sets the storyline of our thriller off. The green night vision connotes thats its night time and gives off a thriller effect. By the audience knowing that it is night time by seeing the green night vision, they may associate this with bad images as bad things tend to happen at night in the dark. 

Frame 3

Next, we introduce our audience to the 'stalker' which is the next main character of our thriller story. The audience would know that this character will be playing the 'stalker' as the clothes she is wearing covers his face which makes his identity unknown. We filmed this shot in Crystal Palace park as we believed that this area gave a cold feeling as it was a cold day with bare trees which made the focus more on the stalker. By the audience not being able to see the stalkers face it relates to our thriller title of 'unknown' as we do not know who is under the Hood. 

Frame 4

Frame 4 shows an over the shoulder shot of the stalker, stalking the young girl on facebook. We thought that this would be a good shot as it shows the stalker using 'facebook' which our target audience of teenagers use near enough every day so they can then relate themselves in this shot. This shot is very important as it is telling the audience that the stalker is stalking the young girl which they previously saw asleep in the bed. 

Frame 5

Frame 5 is also another over the shoulder shot of the stalker, by us having two shots of the stalker looking at the girl, it begins to tell the audience the obsession which the stalker has of the teenage girl, it is important that this gets emphasised on as the audience needs to know the storyline of the film. Once again in this shot we do not see the stalkers face but yet see the back off him which makes the audience question on who he is and what he is up to.

Frame 6

In this frame, we can see that the victim is now out of bed which means that her bad dream is over and she is now in reality. In this shot, it shows the audience of the costume which the teenage girl is wearing which begins to tell the audience a little bit about the girl. This shot may question the audience of them wanting to know where the girl is off to and who she is going to meet.

Frame 7

This shot shows continuity of the young girl carrying on with her journey as she has now entered Crystal Palace Park. The audience may link the previous shot which was shown in frame 3 of where the stalker was previously waiting for the girl as in this shot we see the back of the stalker watching the girl walk furhter into the park. By frame 7, the audience would recognise the stalker in the white hood as in previous scenes we used different shots to show the costume of the stalker. As we see the back of the stalker watching the victim, it begins to tell us that the stalker is watching the girl and is planning to do something to her. 

Frame 8

This frame shows an extreme close up of the girls phone receiving a text message from 'unkown.' The extreme close up shows the importance of the text message. From the previous frame, the audience knows that the stalker has been watching the girl which lets them know that the text message may have been received by the stalker.

Frame 9

Finally, to end our thriller opening we finish with our titles opening which we created in after effects. We was inspired by the film se7en with the way how our opening titles came in as we thought that this gave a feeling of the thriller genre.  By using editing, we made the opening title dissolve in and out of the shot which makes it look more interesting to the audience.

below is a document of other thriller opening titles which inspired ours:

Print Screen for Meida

overall review

Editing up to rough cut

Before our rough cut was produced, we had to make sure that all of our editing was completed in the right order and that as a group we were happy with what we had produced.
We have currently been editing all of our filming using final cut pro, whilest at the same time producing our production logo and opening titles in after effects.
Below are some printscreens of some of the steps which we had to take inorder for us to get the final product:


This is an image of final cut pro which we used. As you can see that on the timeline, we have clips of our footage which we have put in order for them to come up on the screen. On the left screen, we have our footage which we was editing to put into our thriller opening, inorder for us to be able to use these clips we had to make an input and output and then drag it on to our timeline which would then come up on the right hand box which shows what our final film will look like.
In this printscreen we were editing our opening titles which we made in aftereffects and transferring them into final cut pro.


To put more of an effect on our footage, we decided to change the brightness and contrast of certain clips. This printscreen shows that we were using the colour wheel to change the colour of the scene on the right, by us doing this it made the white of the hood stand out and made the pink background more dull to make the scene look more realistic.

Rough Cut

Below is a rough cut of our thriller opening, this shows the style of what our thriller opening is going to look like. We have posted our rough cut onto youtube which allows us to recieve feedback from our target audience of what they like and dislike of our thriller opening. We are going to take these views into consideration and change anything that we agree on.



Feedback:Facebook messages:

Keeley Knell:

i think that your thriller opening is going to look really good, however it think that the writting needs to be made more better because cant really see it.the clips need to be made shorter as they drag on.

Lauren Walker:

oh wow i think its great, very impressed girls!!!!

Stacey Sorahan:
oooooo i reeeally like it :D  what stars you all areee!

Leanne Hillier:
i like the way that your titles are presented, and the part were you are in bed (night time effect) also that you used differant angles i.e at 1:29. The music is also relevent to the theme.

Tamara:
i liked yout thriller opening, i thought that it was interesting and keeps the viewers engaged. I also really liked the way Lauren walked past her stalker wihout knowing, thought that was a great idea. 

Conventions of title sequence.

Before we made our title sequence, we had to think of everything what has to be included into a title sequence.
When making a title sequence you need to make sure that the details of the cast and crew are introduced so that the audience know who will be playing the characters as well as the main people who help take part to make the film. It is important how the title sequence enter and exit the scene as it makes it more interestng and indicates the genre.
One of the most important items which needs to be included in an title sequence is of course the films title as the audience needs to know what the name of the film is what they are watching. The films title needs to be catchy and simple so that the audience can easily remember it.
With the first few opening scenes, it is important that the the main characters are introduced so that the audience know who the storyline will be based on and also some sort of indication of the environment, for example ours is a girls bedroom and a park.
A mood and tone is tend to be set in an opening, in a thriller opening a dark and mysterious mood needs to be set aswell as elements of the thriller genre, this is very important as it will be telling the audience about the rest of the film.

Student film research

I decided that researching previous thriller openings would give me a good idea of what would make a good thriller opening and what wouldnt make a good thriller opening.
The reason why i decided to pick this thriller opening is because it engages the audience, it builds tention and is very independent.
What i like about this thriller opening is that they have edited it so that all of their footage is in black and white which i think makes the scene look more dark and has more of an effect on the audience. The way how they have made their opening titles come in is quite interesting as they come onto the main opening instead of having their own background which introuduces the characters aswell as the director. The group who produced this thriller opening made their own production logo which i think looks better than using a famous one as it makes their work their own and introduces who they are.
The music which they have used sounds like that they created it themselves, this music is very interesting as it has differant sound effects and has a stronger beat as the track goes on making the audience feel the tention in the scene, this is a very good example of how they have engaged the audience as it makes them watch on.
A varierty of differant camera angles have been used, for example a good overt the shoulder shot has been used to show the character checking their watch for the time.
However, their are some things which i thought could of been improved in this thriller opening. For example, when the boy on the slide gets shot, i think that they have made the scene too dramatic with the blood and the way how the boy got shot. To make this scene look more improved, i think that they could of made the blood red, which would stand out from the rest of the black and white scene to show more of an effect to the audience.
What i have learnt from this students film opening, is that if you use a variety of differant shots and put them effectively together with music which build tention then you can capture the audience attention which would make them want to watch the rest of the film and this is what thriller openings are suppose to do.

Preliminary Task

Before we started to film our film openings, we had to all make sure that we had done our preliminary task which allowed us to get use to how to use a camera and make us familiar with different camera shots which are mainly used.  The main three camera shots which we had to use were:

- 180 degree rule
This is when inn a scene, two characters should always have the same left/right relationship to one another and the camera should not move past the 180 degree marking.




- match on action
Match on Match action is usually used to show two characters expressions or to show an conversation between two people.


- Shot reverse shot
Shot reverse shot is like match on match action, it is mainly used to show conversations between two characters. One shot is focuses on one character looking at another character and then another shot of the second character looking back at the first.
Here shows an image of one character, it would then go to shot reverse shot to the next character looking back.

In the prelimiary task, we had to make sure that we used these camera angles whilest filming a character, opening a door, walking through the door, walking across the room and then sitting down on a seat. My group thought that a good idea to show all of this happening is someone coming in for an interview, we all took it in turn to film one and another playing the role of an interviewee and the interviewer which gave us a chance to see how the camera works and how differant camera angles look.
Once we all saw which footage looked the best we begun using final cut pro, to edit the differant shots together to bring the scene of the interview.
I personally, dont think that our prelimiary task went aswell as which it could of as we wasnt very experienced on the camera and didnt make the footage continous. If we was to re-film our preliminary task i think that we should of filmed the shots in differant angles like we did with our thriller opening, this makes the footage look more interesting when it is edited together.
Below is our preliminary task: