Final Cut- Invisible Lives Thriller Opening

By Ruby Pearce & Mandy Edmondson

Q7- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task, I feel I have learnt a lot. I believe I have improved on my filming, editing and planning. Before deciding on our final idea for our thriller, we had numerous ideas, but they were too complicated.

We had many influences for our thriller because we have had to analyse many different thrillers. I have learnt to identify generic thriller conventions which have helped me to develop aspects of mise-en-scene in my own thriller, such as, costume, locations, camera angles and lighting. Working with one other person helped to be considerate of others ideas and learn to compromise.

Camera Angles Learnt:

Over Shoulder

Close Up

Point of View/Worms Eye

Tilt shot

Casting actors for our thriller was hard. We had to take into consideration age, appearance and whether they could act or not. We wanted someone young and female which was not very complicated because I am a drama student and the majority of my drama class are females. After choosing Rio to play the homeless girl, we realised that it was going to be even harder to get everyone together at one time. We found it most difficult to choose our older man, in the end we chose my Dad because he lived in Norwich and was willing to act in his spare time. After filming a couple of times we realised that it was going to be harder than it looked, Rio found it hard to get to and from Norwich in her spare time because she was doing A-levels as well, which are very time consuming, so after doing a few shoots with Rio we decided as a group that it would be easier to use ourselves as actors, we considered who was better at filming and who would suite the part, Mandy volunteered herself, which made it easier to get us all together at the same time.

In our preliminary task my editing skills were not as advanced as they are now. For example I have taught myself to use appropriate transition and visual effects to make my edit more elegant. We used slow motion in the shot of the Stalker as he reaches down towards the homeless girl, and then we left it on a cliffhanger to make the audience want to see more.

I have also learnt to choose an appropriate title. It took us a while, we looked at the word 'Homeless' in different languages to make the film look elegant and reach out to a international audience, however we realised that we wanted to appeal to a younger audience. We finally chose, 'Invisible Lives' because it highlighted the amount of homeless people who were not considered to be members of society.

Overall, I have enjoyed making my thriller. I've had my up's as well as downs, which have only made it stronger and more appealing to watch. I've enjoyed the whole experience and discovering new films of the thriller genre. At the start of the course I had only watched a few thrillers, but was not certain what conventions fit into the genre, but now I have learnt key aspects and can recognise the thriller genre.

Q6- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Before starting Media, I was unaware of how to edit and use Adobe Premier Elements however, I taught myself how to use it and picked it up pretty quickly and now understand how to use it fully. Since starting media I have learnt basic skills on how to use the film cameras. I've learnt new angles and learnt how to be patient when it comes to filming.

Camera angles can make or break a film, especially films of the thriller genre, I have definitely learnt the importance of how using various camera angles can make a film more captivating to watch.Different camera angles can connote different emotions.

When editing we had to learn certain editing techniques, like changing the narrative structure. It took a while to get the clips cut and ordered so that it made sense as well as adding the effect, dipping to black, we had to get it precisely in between the two shots that we wanted it to fade from and into the next, without it looking bad.

During filming our thriller we found that lighting was a big issue. We wanted to film in the early

evening but because it was winter there were not enough hours in the day. As well as lighting issues we had problems with getting all our actors together at the same time and had to change the main actress because it was very time consuming. When editing we had to lighten a few of our shots and an effect that sharpened the image as well as brightening, because the shots were not bright enough. The use of playback on the digital camera helped us review what we had just filmed.

This aspect of digital cameras was helpful when we were shooting in the twilight because we were able to check if the footage was readable, for instance we were filming in the night on the bridge and we couldn’t Mandy after filming it- and it was not clear whom we were filming- so we changed the shot and got Mandy to stand so there was a light from the pavement glaring onto Mandy.

When we eventually came to film we learnt a lot, I learnt that you had to be very patient, not all the shots that we had decided to use worked, so we had to do the same shot in several different angles to give us a variety to choose from when editing. The hardest part of filming was when it came to using the camera by hand held instead of the tripod. It took quite a bit of practice to get steady shots when filming hand held.

A rule that we did not want to break was the 180 degree rule. It was important to us because we had already done a small continuity task on the 180 degree rule, which taught us how not to break it and showed us how vital it was to maintain a decent thriller. When editing we had to add titles, I learnt how to do this from other members in the class who helped me and taught me how to do it.

My Preliminary Task

Other technologies that I have learnt to use is my blog. Before starting media I had never used a blog before and was unaware of how to use it. However I did pick it up quickly, I like the simplicity of the website and found this easy to pick up. Blogging allowed us to store work and come back to edit it when we liked also receiving feedback from our media teachers on how to improve. Other technologies helped us construct our media product, such as, YouTube and IMDB, these websites helped us construct our coursework. Without YouTube I would not have been able to analyse clips from thriller films, that helped influence our thriller. IMDB (Internet Movie Database) also helped our coursework, it contained all the thriller films we were studying as well as statistics about audiences, ratings and age groups- I used YouTube and IMBD for researching all thriller films.

Q5- How did you attract/address your audience?

We focused a lot on the mise-en-scene of our thriller to attract and address our audience. Our locations in the thriller are all local and recognizable, which means the audience to relate to regional identity, which means it will attract 'locals' to watch our thriller. As well as location the ages of our actors attract different audience age groups whom can also relate to their class and ethnicity. Our homeless girl is 17 years old meaning that female teenagers can connect with her feelings of being alone.

As well as costume and age the audience can also relate to soundtrack. The soundtrack is fairly menacing and unsettling, however it is not there to address the audience, but there to reflect the thriller genre. Also our thriller highlights issues in society such as, homelessness and the vulnerability of homeless woman.

We used a cliff-hanger at the end of our thriller, to keep the audience on edge. The use of a cliff-hanger means that the audience will want to watch the rest of the film if they are interested in the issues in society that it addresses in a thriller format.

Our audience feedback:

‘More shots of The Stalker’

‘End shot- less ‘fuzzy’ and jolted’

‘More shots of The Stalker watching girls’

I understand these comments and took them on board- the comment: ‘end shot less ‘fuzzy’ and jolted’ , however I like that effect which gives the impression that the homeless girl is disorientated and shows a worms eye/point of view shot. I believe that the use of this will attract a younger audience because they can relate to how she might be feeling if they were in her position.

Our film taps into the contemporary zeitgeist by showing the fears of being stalked and how being a young woman, alone on the streets at night can make you very vulnerable.

Q4- Who would be the audience for your media product?

(Refer to G321 Target Audience)

I think that 'Invisible Lives' targets a more specific/specialist audience. I think because of its gritty opening and unknown actors as well as having unknown directors it already narrows the appeal to certain audiences. Our thriller is more likely to appeal to woman aged 16-25, because they can relate to our homeless girl and her age, also men and woman aged, 35-50 can relate to our Stalker, whom is middle-aged himself and of middle class, not only can they relate to age and class they can also relate to costume. The 16-25 year old young women would enjoy films such as, Fish Tank, This is England, Submarine and Trainspotting. These films attract a younger audience and nearly all of them address an issue about social class, drugs and general issues in society. This demographic might also be interested in the plight of homeless young women or homelessness in general. They might also be concerned about the high percentage of women losing their jobs because of all the huge cuts in public service jobs, and may have experienced it themselves.

If the audience were to watch other thriller films that relate to issues in society, they are likely to watch, This Is England, I found that from the user demographics, 26,348 females aged 18-29 rated this film and 35,750 males voted- only 11,066 aged 3-44. This shows that film was most popular to men but not of older age, this is likely because the film evolves around young adults. Where as men can relate to the dominance and power of The Stalker in our thriller. We hope our film might place the question of homelessness and the dilemma of sleeping rough in the public eye. The play directed by Ken Roach called Cathy Come Home (1966) is about a young couple who become homeless- this play gained rise to the founding of shelter and eventually the beginning of the weekly newspaper, The Big Issue. Because of this my audience may be politically active and educationally aspiring and interested in social issues in Britain.

Q3- What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our production is very low budget and relative to real life issues, such as homelessness and stalking. The best form of distribution for our film would probably be Warp Films, renowned for working with low budget, pioneering film makers as well as distributing alternative films such as, Shane Meadow’s, This is England and Dead Man’s Shoes, also directed by Shane Meadows. This is England reflects a story about a troubled boy growing up in England, set in 1983. He comes across a few skinheads on his way home from school, after a fight, they get to know each other and become his new best friends even like family. Based on the experiences of the director Shane Meadows. It reflects Meadow’s experiences of growing up in the 80’s and the gritty lives of the youth and how a lot of them hated Thatcher.

This is England- Trailer

The idea that Warp Films are mostly realistic and low budget films appeals to our thriller because it could highlight the percentage of homeless people living in the UK- ‘Warp Films is an independent UK film production company. It is based in Sheffield & London, UK with a further office in Melbourne, Australia’.

I could also see our thriller appealing to Film Four, because they, develop and co-finance films and are ‘known for working with the most innovative talent in the UK, whether new or established’. Film Four often host particular genre weeks on their channel to promote new films or recently released films. This could benefit our thriller and not just appeal to a niche audience. As well as Film Four, BBC Films help fund independent films, such as Fish Tank, which is about an alienated and troubled young girl living on a council estate in Tilbury Essex. This film reflects the issues in society that are not widely spoken about- so it is a possibility that BBC Films could be a good option for our film.

Fish Tank- Trailer

As technology is evolving the use of the Internet could access a huge audience through social network sites such as, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and even Youtube. This would work well with warp films because their films appeal to a younger, teenage audience. As well as being the easier approach they are efficiently the cheaper option as well. It is free to post videos on Facebook and Youtube, and both sites contain a large number of potential viewers as anybody can access the internet. This would benefit our film greatly and maybe draw the attention to other media productions.

We considered Working Title films but they are not as approachable because they do not have the recognition of making independent, low budget films, such as our film, Invisible Lives. It is also very hard to gain funding from a well established company because there are no recognisable actors or directors to draw the attention to Working Title, which is normally the attraction they would go for.

In terms of cinemas in media productions, our thriller would suit a more independent cinema such as, Cinema City in Norwich. This could appeal to them because our thriller was filmed in Norwich and would fit with their independent film genres. Cinema City appeals to a niche audience which would fit well with our thriller.