Good to see mind maps etc uploaded - but you need to catch up with the representation blog, as well as uploading storyboards etc.
The mind map is a little vague, I would like to have seen more than one drilling deeper into your idea.
I would also like to see a much more detailed outline of the story for your film. You should discuss characters, the audience likely response to them and the plot twists.
At the moment these posts are at a level 2.
Friday, 7 November 2014
Thursday, 6 November 2014
The Storyline and Mind Map
Mind Map for our different film ideas:
Story:
A woman's (Roseanne) family was taken from her at a young age (her parents are killed by order of a corrupt, jealous business man) so she goes to live with her grandparents. There she develops skills and her need for vengeance grows. She receives a tip off from an anonymous source about another person involved with her parents' deaths. She tracks down this person and tortures them for information which leads to another target involved with the deaths. Each target brings her closer to the corrupt business man and each target forces her to remember things from her past (both happy and horrific memories), Eventually, many targets later, she ends up face to face with the man who killed her parents. She fights off henchmen but ends up pinned against a window by the business man. She demands that he tells her why he had her parents killed and it turns out the parents and himself were all friends in the past and had fallen in love with Roseann's mother but she was with her father at the time.
The businessman went behind their backs and stole their idea for their business and became rich and powerful. With his new found power, he hired a hitman to kill the father so the mother would go with him, but something went wrong and the hitman ended up killed both of them.
After he tells this story, Roseann manages to take control of him as she is up against a window and he is now in the position she was in. She pushes him out of the window, turns and walks away.
We hope the audience would be able to feel sorry for Roseann but at the same time question what she's doing - is it right? The memories shown are supposed to give the audience some back story to what happened to Roseann and her parents. The plot twist at the end, about the business man liking her mother, was supposed to make the audience maybe feel bad for him and sympathize with his thoughts instead of hating him like the film was leading up to happening.
Story:
A woman's (Roseanne) family was taken from her at a young age (her parents are killed by order of a corrupt, jealous business man) so she goes to live with her grandparents. There she develops skills and her need for vengeance grows. She receives a tip off from an anonymous source about another person involved with her parents' deaths. She tracks down this person and tortures them for information which leads to another target involved with the deaths. Each target brings her closer to the corrupt business man and each target forces her to remember things from her past (both happy and horrific memories), Eventually, many targets later, she ends up face to face with the man who killed her parents. She fights off henchmen but ends up pinned against a window by the business man. She demands that he tells her why he had her parents killed and it turns out the parents and himself were all friends in the past and had fallen in love with Roseann's mother but she was with her father at the time.
The businessman went behind their backs and stole their idea for their business and became rich and powerful. With his new found power, he hired a hitman to kill the father so the mother would go with him, but something went wrong and the hitman ended up killed both of them.
After he tells this story, Roseann manages to take control of him as she is up against a window and he is now in the position she was in. She pushes him out of the window, turns and walks away.
We hope the audience would be able to feel sorry for Roseann but at the same time question what she's doing - is it right? The memories shown are supposed to give the audience some back story to what happened to Roseann and her parents. The plot twist at the end, about the business man liking her mother, was supposed to make the audience maybe feel bad for him and sympathize with his thoughts instead of hating him like the film was leading up to happening.
Wednesday, 5 November 2014
Representation In Thriller Films
Representation is the way in which media and films represent certain things like characters, ideas, experiences and other things and a lot of the time they have meanings behind them.
In thriller films, women don't have specific stereotypes when compared to other genres. For example, in horror films, the women are often the ones who scream and run away from the villain and rely on a male to save them.
In films, there is a theory called 'The Male Gaze' which is about the fact that films are seen from the males perspective and women are always sexualised. This is common idea in films and one way this can be tested is by doing the 'Bechdel Test'. This is used to test gender bias in films by asking three questions about the story:
1) Are there at least two women in the story?
2) Are they talking to each other?
3) Are they talking about something other than a man?
A lot of films actually do fail the tests which prove that some films .
In thriller films, however, the women can be anything from the damsel in distress to or the survivor (the last person alive out of a group), or they can be the dangerous person. For example, in a recent film called 'Lucy' which was actually rather successful, Scarlett Johansson played the main female character who does as much action as a male would do in other action-thrillers.
Men in thriller films are often both the protagonist and antagonist. When they play the protagonist, they are often either the hero stuck in a position and having to save the day, or they are a villain who is doing something bad but the audience still supports them to a certain extent. An example of this is in the TV show 'Breaking Bad', where the main protagonist seems to be an anti-hero and does quite a lot of bad things (like poisoning a child), yet for some reason, a lot of the audience still sided with him and wanted him to win in the end.
If a woman is a villain, they will either be made to be sexualised or they will be made to look scary or ugly. It is very rare if they are made to look like a normal villain. In 'Man Of Steel', there is a villain that works for General Zod, Faora-Ul isn't sexualised in anyway, she is made to look like a normal woman and a villain. However in films like the James Bond franchise, they are often made to look
sexual and the main character will always seem to have some sexual interest in them.
However when men are villains, they are either made to look scruffy and suspicious or just look like a normal man. Like in 'The Taking Of Pellham 123', the villain seems to look like a normal man but with sun glasses in order to look more evil.
In conclusion, men and women are represented in different ways sometimes in the thriller genre and in film in general. Women seem to be represented in a way that is in a sexual way a lot but men seem to represented as heroic or a normal human being.
In films, there is a theory called 'The Male Gaze' which is about the fact that films are seen from the males perspective and women are always sexualised. This is common idea in films and one way this can be tested is by doing the 'Bechdel Test'. This is used to test gender bias in films by asking three questions about the story:
1) Are there at least two women in the story?
2) Are they talking to each other?
3) Are they talking about something other than a man?
A lot of films actually do fail the tests which prove that some films .
Men in thriller films are often both the protagonist and antagonist. When they play the protagonist, they are often either the hero stuck in a position and having to save the day, or they are a villain who is doing something bad but the audience still supports them to a certain extent. An example of this is in the TV show 'Breaking Bad', where the main protagonist seems to be an anti-hero and does quite a lot of bad things (like poisoning a child), yet for some reason, a lot of the audience still sided with him and wanted him to win in the end.sexual and the main character will always seem to have some sexual interest in them.However when men are villains, they are either made to look scruffy and suspicious or just look like a normal man. Like in 'The Taking Of Pellham 123', the villain seems to look like a normal man but with sun glasses in order to look more evil.
In conclusion, men and women are represented in different ways sometimes in the thriller genre and in film in general. Women seem to be represented in a way that is in a sexual way a lot but men seem to represented as heroic or a normal human being.
Wednesday, 15 October 2014
Feedback - Miss Spencer
Audience research feedback - Although you have clearly researched your subject you need much more detail in this post. At the moment this is a level 2 - in order to improve you should:
Use the graphs/statistics you found within your blog, and ensure you say where you got these from (credit your source)
Think about the audience reception theories - we will be covering these in lesson next week. You must discuss these within an audience post
Genre research feedback
Your genre research is much more detailed, and you clearly understand the genre as it is today. At the moment you are nearly in a level 3, in order to improve you should add some history of the development of the genre research. This will help you understand how the genre has developed and decide if you want to use conventions from different eras of the genre.
Thursday, 9 October 2014
Task 2.2: Thriller Genre Conventions
A generic thriller film story plot often has a protagonist who is somewhat heroic, or if he's not heroic then he is there to keep the plot going but will usually do good. The antagonist's identity is usually hidden and will uncover as the film goes on. He usually has something to do with the protagonist and his life story. However, this is only an example of generic thriller films, sometimes they are a lot more complex and have much more complicated stories.
Other classic thriller film characters are ones like psychotic killer, spies, assassins, detectives and a lot more. These character are in the film to build intensity for the audience, it's supposed to make it feel like it could happen to the audience. A thriller film's goal is to make the audience feel anticipation and uncertainty whilst at the same time excitement.
Some of the main themes of a thriller are things like terrorism, political conspiracies or a chase and suspense.
The iconography consists of things like low lighting and tension music building. Films like 'Fight Club' did this all the time with it's low lighting and it's soundtrack made specifically for the film. For example, the low lighting is shown in this frame of the film:
Here, the lighting is mainly made up of one above the door and another on the wall. There's probably some lighting behind the camera giving it a miserable and mysterious feel. This kind of lighting is found in other thrillers for the same reason and it makes it a convention for them all. Also, the mise en scene in this frame shows a run down, urban setting which is, again, another convention, done to make it look like a gritty place.
Thriller films add non diegetic music in the background to build up the situation and add intensity. The music will often get louder and faster in situations that's meant to make the audience feel like thy're not going to get out of the dilemma they're in. Some films get their own soundtrack made for them which helps make the film it's own.
Quick cuts are a very common way of changing shots in thriller films as it makes the audience get worried and caught up in the action. It's used a lot in shot reverse shots in order to make the people talking a lot more intense. An example of shot reverse shots used to build intensity is in a film called 'Heat'.
This thriller film uses shot reverse shots quite a lot in this cafe scene as it is the protagonist and antagonist talking to each other. In fact, this thriller film doesn't use the generic 'heroic antagonist', instead, the protagonist is a bank robber and the antagonist is a detective. But still, it uses the convention of having a detective in the story which is quite common.
Another example of detectives being used in thrillers is another David Fincher film called 'Seven' where the two main characters are detectives and they fit into the convention of having a heroic character.
Something that was quite common in noir-thrillers is the use of shadows. This is where dark lighting and shadows first became popular along with its black and white shots. This is done to, again, add a gritty feel to the film along with mystery to the characters.
A classic use of black and white is in Hitchcock's 'Pycho'. This is film has the classic shower scene of someone about to be killed in the shower. The music is also built up in the scene to add to the intensity and horror of the situation.
Thriller films add non diegetic music in the background to build up the situation and add intensity. The music will often get louder and faster in situations that's meant to make the audience feel like thy're not going to get out of the dilemma they're in. Some films get their own soundtrack made for them which helps make the film it's own.
Quick cuts are a very common way of changing shots in thriller films as it makes the audience get worried and caught up in the action. It's used a lot in shot reverse shots in order to make the people talking a lot more intense. An example of shot reverse shots used to build intensity is in a film called 'Heat'.
Another example of detectives being used in thrillers is another David Fincher film called 'Seven' where the two main characters are detectives and they fit into the convention of having a heroic character.
Something that was quite common in noir-thrillers is the use of shadows. This is where dark lighting and shadows first became popular along with its black and white shots. This is done to, again, add a gritty feel to the film along with mystery to the characters.A classic use of black and white is in Hitchcock's 'Pycho'. This is film has the classic shower scene of someone about to be killed in the shower. The music is also built up in the scene to add to the intensity and horror of the situation.
Task 3.1: Research on Audiences
Our film is a thriller film in the theme of a noir film. Usually thrillers can attract audiences of teenagers and young adults, but our film aims to reach an audience of both male and female and the ages from 16-50. I say we want it to reach to an age of 50 because noir films are old and an older audience would appreciate the themes of a noir more than young teenagers.
Django Unchained, which had two leading characters about a German man who rescues a slave, the audience for that film was 36% 15-24 years old and 26% for 25-34 years old. This shows that both the younger and older generation care about films with themes that send a message and have action and suspense. This is what our film aims to do.
Also, with the main character being a woman, we hope this will attract more of a female audience to it when a lot of thriller films are very male dominated. This way, woman will be able to relate more to the main character. Last year, films with a male main character had more of a male audience, for example, Man of Steel's audience was 68% male and 32% female. Again, with Captain Philips which was an action-thriller, the audience was 69% male and 31% female. But films with a main female character tend to have a larger female audience. Frozen - which had two leading female characters - had a male audience of 34% and a female audience of 66%.
Therefore, we hope that by making our film with a leading female character, the genders in our audience will be fairly equal.
People would want to watch our film because the story is very similar to things like 'Batman' or 'Taken'. With Taken being so popular, this film will appeal to that audience as it's an action story about vengeance. A popular action film that's led by a female character is 'The Hunger Games' which has turned into a series of films which is loved by a lot of people. As our film is an action film which is led by a female character, we would hope that this film would be quite popular.
In conclusion, our films aims to reach quite a diverse audience. We hope with it having themes of noir as well as a female character will make audiences curious and go to watch it.
Django Unchained, which had two leading characters about a German man who rescues a slave, the audience for that film was 36% 15-24 years old and 26% for 25-34 years old. This shows that both the younger and older generation care about films with themes that send a message and have action and suspense. This is what our film aims to do.
Also, with the main character being a woman, we hope this will attract more of a female audience to it when a lot of thriller films are very male dominated. This way, woman will be able to relate more to the main character. Last year, films with a male main character had more of a male audience, for example, Man of Steel's audience was 68% male and 32% female. Again, with Captain Philips which was an action-thriller, the audience was 69% male and 31% female. But films with a main female character tend to have a larger female audience. Frozen - which had two leading female characters - had a male audience of 34% and a female audience of 66%.
Therefore, we hope that by making our film with a leading female character, the genders in our audience will be fairly equal.
People would want to watch our film because the story is very similar to things like 'Batman' or 'Taken'. With Taken being so popular, this film will appeal to that audience as it's an action story about vengeance. A popular action film that's led by a female character is 'The Hunger Games' which has turned into a series of films which is loved by a lot of people. As our film is an action film which is led by a female character, we would hope that this film would be quite popular.
In conclusion, our films aims to reach quite a diverse audience. We hope with it having themes of noir as well as a female character will make audiences curious and go to watch it.
Wednesday, 8 October 2014
Feedback - Miss Spencer
Your writing is detailed and you use media language confidently at times.
At the moment this work is a level 3, in order to move up to a level 4 you should:
Use more media language
Talk more about editing
Discuss the iconography and character representation more in each of the genres you have analysed. This will help with your subsequent posts.
At the moment this work is a level 3, in order to move up to a level 4 you should:
Use more media language
Talk more about editing
Discuss the iconography and character representation more in each of the genres you have analysed. This will help with your subsequent posts.
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