TASK THREE: What kind of media institution might distribute your media project and why?

My media project's aim was to produce a successful and adrenaline pumping opening sequence to a thriller. I think that we have successfully achieved this through the build up of suspense through our tracking shot, in which only the feet of the suspected enemy of the story can be seen.

Out of the film companies that we have studied (Warner Bros Pictures, Warp Films and Vertigo) I think that Vertigo is the most likely to distribute my media project. Vertigo is a British independent film company which creates a wide variety of films. Our group decided that our thriller would be a 'CSI' type of film which had a number of murders linked together (possibly by the idea of The Olympics). Vertigo has, in the past, created 'CSI thrillers' (an example being ‘WAZ’) and so my film would fit into a genre of film which has previously been a success for this media institution, meaning that they would possibly be interested in another. 

Vertigo also aims to balance social realism with films of a mainstream intention which is perfect for my thriller. The storyline which would follow on from our opening sequence would be of an aspiring Olympic swimmer whose dream is to win a gold medal, but she is kidnapped by her competition (either another swimmer or another swimmer’s trainer). 

TASK TWO: How does your product represent particular social groups?

This screengrab of the young girl swimming was chosen to represent the social group of teenage girls. 

We chose to shoot this underwater shot fairly close to our actor (Bethany) in order to make the audience feel uneasy as if they are swimming alongside her. The point of the underwater shot was to emphasise her isolation. As anyone who has been swimming will know, when you are underwater, what you hear gets distorted and is much quieter. Therefore, for the case of our thriller, as the man approaches her in the pool, she had no idea that he was coming as she was underwater and could not hear him.

This picture shows the vulnerability that is often associated with teenage girls through the idea of her wearing only a swimming costume. Nowadays there is a stereotype for the kind of girl who is considered vulnerable in society. This girl, in general would be:

-alone

-distracted (perhaps by an iPod or mobile phone)

-dressed provocatively

-often around 15 or 16

This particular screengrab accurately shows aspects of all of these signs of vulnerability amongst teenage girls. The girl in the pool is:

-alone

-distracted (focused on her swimming and beating her best time)

-dressed in few clothes (because she is swimming)

-around the age of 16

It can therefore be seen that our main character in the opening of the thriller is the perfect target for a murder (which will later be the main plot of our thriller) and the screengrab represents the social group of teenage girls.

This is a screengrab from the film 'Scream' where, in the opening sequence, the girl gets stalked and eventually killed by a mysterious masked figure. This girl is similar to the girl in our thriller as she is also alone, young and at first distracted by the cooking. 

The main difference is that she is not shown to be dressed provocatively, however this film was made in 1996, at which time it was not such a craze as it is today (2011) for teenage girls to go out in clothes showing a lot of skin.

This film was a great success and a number of sequels were produced. This suggests to me (due to the large number of similarities between this film's opening sequence and my own) that my film would also be a success as it meets social stereotypes of teenage girls which prepare us to be scared.

TASK ONE: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

These nine images are all screen grabs taken from our thriller which I feel adhere to the genre of thriller. The pictures are in chronological order and show the build up of tension starting from the beginning and and reaching a climax at the end. Looking at each individual picture, it is possible to analysise its relevance to a thriller film:

1) As seen in a number of thriller films, dark water adds a sense of the unknown which makes the audience nervous as they do not know what is coming. The stillness of the water is eerie and makes the audience uneasy, preparing them to be scared when the girl breaks the water with a dive.

2) This screen shot adds an element of time. The counting stopwatch helps to add tension as the audience think of each second as a second closer to a disaster e.g. in this case, a second closer to her encounter with the strange man.

3) The underwater shot of the girl doing a tumble turn creates the feeling of isolation. When she is underwater, she is completely unaware of what is going on above water in the 'real world'.

4) This shot shows the girl swimming towards the stopwatch. I chose to include this in my nine screen shots as it is a good example of the titles. We chose to use a sophisticated font, conveniently placed in an easy-to-read part of the screen. We chose to use this subtle font so that it is not blatently a thriller e.g. red writing. This in a way, subverts audience expectation.

5) This is a picture of the slow motion tumble turn. There is a lot of splashing water moving very slowly which obstructs the audience's view of bethany, causing confusion. Slow motion can also be linked to sports and swimming, as races are often replayed in slow motion to exaggerate any successes or failures.

6) This slow motion breath adds tension and it is at this point in the sequence when the build up to climax really begins. The breath which was added in during editing (due to slow motion having no sound) sounds like a desperate gasp which exaggerates the girl's determination in beating her time.

7) This screen grab is the second of two quick underwater shots which were added to create confusion and tell the audience that something is about to happen.

8)This screen grab shows the tracking shot which is accompanied by the beating of drums. The fact that the person's identity is concealed adds an element of suspense. The way the camera follows the man also shows that something is about to happen.

9) This final screen grab is of our title. The title is accompanied by eerie music which scares the audience and the actual title of 'Immersed' keeps the audience guessing what the film is actually going to be about.

Audience and genre

Above are two print screens of a Powerpoint presentation I made which show the target audience intended for our original thriller's storyline.

Vertigo Films are a British independent film company which we have learnt about in our lessons.

Vertigo would be best positioned to sell our thriller because, as a company they create a balance between social realism and films of a mainstream intention which is suited, in my opinion, to our storyline.

Evaluation of the Shoot Day

In general, the shoot day went according to plan. We were finished in time, we got all the shots we wanted and all our actors performed as we had hoped. There were obviously aspects of the day which we had not been able to anticipate beforehand – most of these were to do with the location as we had only pictures and word of mouth to go by. The photographs Courtney had taken were accurate and therefore we did not encounter any real problems. The only slight problem was the problem of condensation on the glass however we managed to incorporate this into our film sequence as it made the vision of the stalker less clear and therefore much creepier.

 In some ways, the shoot day went much better than I had thought. We hadn’t even thought of using slow motion until we were actually on location, and we were all really impressed with the results. The tracking shot was also really impressive and (although it took a few takes) we got the perfect shot in the end.

Overall I am really pleased with how it all went. Our group worked well together, with everyone getting a go at all the different skills we had learnt in our lessons, and at the end of the day, we all felt as if our hard work had paid off.

Shooting day

The date our group was given to shoot our opening title sequence was Friday 28^th January. We gathered all the equipment needed and set off to our location in good time.

Our Location

We were shooting at Courtney’s (a girl in our class) house which took about half an hour to get to by mini bus. As we arrived at the location, we didn’t take long to adjust to the surroundings – we soon learnt how to turn on and off the swimming pool lights and the fan in the room, which we had to keep the same throughout the shoot to keep up the continuity. We set up the light behind a glass door, with light shining in on the pool, highlighting Bethany (our main actress) as she swam up and down the pool. The whole of our shoot was shot in one location which meant we could spend time getting the shots perfect.

The first shots we decided to get (out of the water) were wide shots of Bethany swimming up and down the length of the pool. Before this, we used the camcorder in the underwater case to film some underwater shots of Bethany. For example, for one shot the camera is underwater filming as Bethany dives over the top of it. We also got some shots of Bethany as she reached the end of the pool, doing a tumble turn in slow motion. Before we took a lunch break, we set up the tracks for the spider dolly to move along, giving the effect of a sweeping shot.

After lunch, we put the tracks into action, moving the camera along with Adam’s feet as he paced up the side of the swimming pool. 

 Bella and me filming the tracking shot

The idea of this is to make the audience believe that the stalker has entered the building and is, in some way, going to harm the girl. Just as the camera stops moving, Bethany and Adam reach the end of the pool at the same time (Bethany swimming and Adam walking). Bethany looks up, scared, exclaiming ‘You scared me!’. This is the first dialogue included in the story and adds an element of shock. When we had got all of the shots we were happy with (focusing on Bethany) we moved on to Ted (the stalker). The idea is that Ted is outside the window just watching Bethany swim up and down. The windows in the pool room got more and more condensed as the day went on, so when we filmed Ted looking in from the inside, it gave a scary effect as none of his features were clearly visible through the glass. The next shots we got of Ted were close ups of his hand slamming against the glass, and later sliding his hand against the glass. As all of this is going on, Bethany is still swimming up and down the length of the pool (training).

The final shots we got at the end of the days shooting were taken from above of Ted peering through the window. 

 Me filming Ted from above on the balcony

In order to get these shots, we had to stand on a balcony and move the camera along as he walked, finishing with a focus pull. We also decided to shoot some POV shots of the stalker walking down the outside stairs. In order to do this we had to lean the camera on a member of our team’s shoulder and get them to carefully walk down the stairs – giving a shaky impression.

CAST

Name: Bethany Quinn

Age: 16

Role: swimmer

We chose to cast Bethany as our swimmer as she has a past in swimming and therefore has a swimmer's physique. She also studies theatre studies as one of her AS levels, and so has experience with acting. We have asked for her consent and she is happy for us to film her in a swimming costume.

Name: Adam Grant 

Age: Early thirties

Role: plays the mysterious man who enters the swimming pool

We originally chose to cast Adam as this character as the mysterious man is later revealed to be the father, however we decided that this reveal was not necessary in the opening sequence. Adam was chosen as he could play a young father (as he is a father himself), has previous experience acting in media videos and is willing to be a part of our video. As it turns out, through our editing process and the changes we made, it was only essential to see the feet of this 'mysterious man'.

Planning

Whilst planning our final idea we looked at my original idea and questioned how well we would be able to pull off all of the ideas.
The main thing that we changed was the idea of the stalker drawing in the condensation on the window, and also the idea that the stalker comes inside to the swimming pool area. Instead of this we thought about deceiving the audience. By this, we meant that instead of the stalker coming in, another character enters the room. The audience will see his feet pacing up and down and assume that it is the stalker. When the girl comes up from swimming she screams before looking relieved to see her father standing over her.

After we had all agreed on a storyline that we were happy with, we decided to start on the script. The majority of the scene will not have dialogue until the end of the sequence when the swimmer exclaims "You scared me!" followed by "Supper's ready" spoken by the father and then "I'll be there in five". The rest of the scene will be the swimmer swimming up and down lengths of the pool with shots showing the stalker through the window.

Our idea of the storyline is therefore quite basic which means that we will be able to concentrate on getting interesting and different shots to what would normally be seen in an AS level project, for example the underwater shots of the girl swimming.

Once we had the script sorted, it was time to start storyboarding. This involved thinking of all the shots we wanted and adding in all the details needed for each shot. For example, the time each shot lasts, the lighting in each shot and any movement in each shot. Our first storyboard only showed our first ideas and did not need to be particularly neat. We continued to edit it until we reached our final storyboard.
Below is our final story board: