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

I feel that i have learnt many things from my preliminary task to our opening sequence, one of these things would be my understand of the effects that each shot type has on the audience e.g point of view shot would allow the viewer to feel more engaged in the film, knowing the effects of certain shots allowed me to reach my goal without fail. Secondly the way in which final cut pro helps to create high quality effects such as dimming of the light. I learnt that very precise planing and organisation was necessary in order to meet the deadlines that were set, i also learnt and felt the full benefits of blogger as i could easily view the work of the students in my class in order to give my self a better understand of the work that is expected from me.

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

We learnt many things throughout the production of the thriller regarding different aspects of technology including camera work and editing. We developed our knowledge on how to capture certain shots. We learnt that filming more than once was vital as it helps with editing and a full battery was essential. The main technologies we used in our production we're camera's ( the Canon 550 & the XM2 ) Blogger and final cut pro. I personally  think that blogger was the most useful piece of technology that was available as it was easy to view my groups blogs and it was easy to upload and edit my posts. Our posts were then reviewed by my teacher who gave me useful tips and targets on how to improve my work. The Cameras that we used were very good as it gave high quility results and yet was able to upload very fast to the macs in school, the only problem i felt the cameras had was the battery life and the lack of memory, due to these two problems we were forced to change our filming schedules. The most professional program that we use was final cut pro, yet it was the most difficult to work with, shortly after our introduction on how to use final cut pro by our teacher we found it very easy to create very realistic effects and found that the possibility's were endless while editing, The high quality results that we received equated with the complexity. 

How did you attract/address your audience?

We were aiming our product for teenagers, the use of a teenager victim will allow us to attract teenagers, we used props and mise en scene to clarify the age group that our film was intended for, we displayed our male victim to wearing modern cloths (bought in JD) that are worn by teenagers in our current day, all these aspects that are included in our opening sequence will surly attract teenager.  

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I searched on the internet a few films that helped to inspire my opening sequence and focused on the audience that the films were intended for. The three films that i searched for all were watched and intended for the ages from 15 - 18, and were closely followed by 20 year olds, also the films were watched and commented by both males and females making the intended gender to be very diverse. I thought that the audience for my opening sequence would be ages between 15 - 18 as the the characters that are victimised by  are teenagers. The questionairs that we handed out showed us that our film would most likely to be viewed by teenagers, i also personally believe that a typical teenager would go to see a thriller at a cinema often.

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

I believe that Working Title could possibly distribute our film, this company produces main-stream films and they like to pick up and develop on modern ideas, also the fact that they are a British film company would help us as our film is also British. The fact that Working Title is connected to Universal Studio’s makes its films more mainstream and less independent, it would be perfect for our media product as our thriller is not extremely independent nor is it a risk to a company. None of the films I researched were eccentrically showed on TV, proving that a -thriller like mine are more likely to be released in the Cinema’s, on DVD and on Blu-Ray, However i personally feel that our product would be more likely to be distributed by a small media institution's our film focuses on young adults rather than a wider audience.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Within our opening sequence there is only one character that is 

male which is the helpless victim of a killer that lusts to kill (the killer is anonymous therefore cant be classified), normally in thriller the victim tends to be a female as females are stereo typically thought to lack the physical strength of males but as a said the victim in our opening sequence is a male, this allows the audiance to feel the might of the killer, Our media represents teenagers that are yet in collage as young adults in our time understand the dangers that may come their way therefore teenagers could feel a that they are being displayed. Over all i would say that our opening sequence would be aimed for teenagers with the use of mise en scene (Collage) and props used (bag for Collage).

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

The sound track that we used for our media product was influenced from the Phone Booth. The sound track used has strong relation to our title ‘Prank Call’. The sound track is played at a fast pace developing dramatic tension that gets the audience mentally aware. From our questionnaire the comments that we received concerning the sound track was positive however one participant said that the constant music of the telephone ringing was boring and did not give and insight, he also mentioned that the sound track did not create awareness instead caused irritation due to the constant phone ringing. Our editing resulted in our film being simple and fast as there cuts that we displayed were simultaneous, this feature is common in thrillers as it keeps the audience alert. Within our opening sequence we did use some conventions of the thriller genre such as innocent and helpless victims which are typically used within thriller genres, we used dark and gloomy sounds that helped to create tension which is also a convention of the thriller as the audience is engaged and afraid of sudden actions, also within our opening sequence we had the typical killer that was anonymous, we did not display the killers face in order to create a sense of mystery. We used some interesting camera techniques to create effect such as the point of view shot of the killer following the victim, this shot creates tension and suspense, however the feedback that we received from the audience helped us understand that we did not vary the shots distances enough, this was due to the overwhelming amount of attention we gave to what was actually in the shot rather than the distance of the shot from the action. We filmed during the day which did not fit in the conventions of the thriller genre as thrillers tend to have a dark & mysterious Mise-en-scene, A typical thriller convention ensures that the action takes place at night. In our opening sequence the ways in which it meets the convention of a typical thriller genre is the music that we used, the victims being helpless and week also helps to relate the film to a thriller genre and finally the environment (mise en scene) being a school helps to the audience to feel connected to the victims creating sympathy and fear as the film is rated for 15+.

New Synopsis

Our new synopsis is about a teenager that is constantly prank called at the end of every school day. like every other day as he walks out of his school day he receives a call from a withheld number, he is constantly threatened to be killed by an anonymous person who claims to know everything about the young boy, the teenager ends the call with frustration an a hint of fear, as he walks down an alley way that leads to his house he receives yet another miss call, this time the teenager could almost feel the killer breathing on his neck, his battery dies out thus ending the phone call, as he continues to walk down the alley way he hears someone constantly call out to him but as the teenager looks back he sees nothing but the lamps that light up the alley way, just as the teenager convinces him self that all the noises that he presumably heard were all apart of his imagination he hears the same noise and looks back only to see a man standing before him, the teenager cautiously steps back, the killer mysteriously kills the teenager as we only see the teen lying on the ground. 

The film will be set in the UK around north London, the target audience will be for pupils aged 15 and over, mostly young teenagers as there are teenagers within the film. With this film I Aim to fulfil  the conventions that are normally set for thrillers; conventions such as scary music, a killer the way in which thriller build suspense and gets the audience thinking.

I think that this will have an impact on my audience as it will relate to teenagers today in London and whilst filming the opening sequence I will try to fit as many conventions of thriller as possible.

3.4 Shot List

3.4 Shot List

Shot List for our Thriller Opening

Shot 1: As the student is coming out of the class room a shot will take place that will pan whilst he is going down the stairs, a long shot will be used here.

Shot 2: The next shows the boy walking towards the camera while coming down the stairs .

Shot 3: This shot will be were the boy reaches the end of the stairs and receives a miss call. This will be a mid shot from the waist and above. He turns his head and looks towards the door.

Shot 4: We then go back to a pan shot of the boy walking towards the door to go outside.

Shot 5: The next shot will be a birds eye view shot of him walking outside into the path way. 

Shot 6: The camera will then show a long shot of him walking towards the camera.

Shot 7: We then cut to a close up of his pocket as we hear the phone ring.

Shot 8: There will be a over the shoulder shot of him reaching for his pockets and looking at the phone to see who is calling.

Shot 9: We will then see a shot of him walking out of the gates, the camera will pan from left to right to indicate that he is walking to the alley way.

Shot 10: The camera then shows a long shot of the boy walking towards the alley way.

Shot 11: There will be a point of view shot from the killers eyes. 

Shot 12: As the boy turns around there will be a close up of his face which will represent fear.

Shot 13: Then a shot of him walks away from the camera.

Shot 14: Then a hand reaches out as if the camera is the killer 

Shot 15: The camera then flashes again towards the floor

Shot 16: We then get a long shot of the boy dead on the floor.

Call Sheet

Call Sheet

CAEDO

Name	E-mail address	Phone number
Yasin	yasin.s@hotmail.co.uk	07946569378
Ethem	kanidagli@hotmail.co.uk	07851688881

Props: school bags, normal clothes, books, folders, phone, 

Equipment: camera, mic, tripod, tape, battery

Location: Stoke Newington School

Production Successes

19/11/10
Me and my partner yasin was able to locate enviroments that were similar to a prison cell. This made our filming look more profetional and realistic.
We gained access to props that were very realistic. (knifes)
We also were able to ride around with a car, therefore we were able to make far distant journeys in a matter of minutes.

Production Obstacles

19/11/10
Me and my partner yasin successfully filmed a majority of the opening sequence, however towards the end we pressed the record button when we walking and recorded our journy to the scene instead of what we were initially supposed  to film.

Old Synopsis

Our thriller will be about a killer that commits his murders without any clues but the carvings on his victims skin that eventually spells out a word.

The story starts with the killer departing from prison packing his cloths up and most important placing pictures and notes inside a small case with a padlock code that is coded by 4 digits that is also a clue.

The killer is filmed exiting the prison and while he does this one of the prisoners in the cell gives him a piece of paper (this person is anonymous) that is folded. 

The killer is filmed in his house planning away, placing the photos on the wall before his desk.

The killer one by one follows his victims and gathers information on them then kills them in various ways but always includes a letter carving on the victims skin.

In the very end the killer purposely waits in a warehouse to be caught. After hours of thinking the police finally figure out where he is by the lock on the brief case (coordinates). The killer is filmed talking to himself and giving us information on why he committed murder and as we are informed of this the previous killings are displayed on screen to give the audience a good idea of who he had killed.
Finally the police arrive in a calm manor to take him away, a facial expression is displayed showing satisfaction. He returns to his cell and rest there till the end of his days. 

3.1 What i learnt by doing the preliminary exercise

*I learnt that the boom mic is not necessary in small areas,  the purpose of the boom mic is to specifically capture the sound of the intended characters instead of e.g cars going by.
*I learnt that filming the same scene from two angles can be helpful for editing, as it portrays and presents the facial expressions of both characters.

*Also whilst doing our preliminary exercise i realised that things don't always going according to plan such as finding the right props or being able to use certain rooms as sometimes there is no access to certain rooms in the building, this shows that planing before filming is very important as it assures that everything will go smoothly without any errors or mistakes.