CCR PT.2 planning

Question 1:

Common Conventions:

Narrative:

1. Aim is to create suspense and excitement
2. Often violence is a key theme in thrillers
3. Usually has a Antagonist who is dodgy or immoral 
4. Thrillers usually start with equilibrium and this is disrupted and by the end it will be restored by some sort of hero or something.

Mise-en-scene:

1. Antagonist/ bad guy usually wears dark or black clothes.
2. Blood and violence is common
3. Guns, Knives, Weapons
4. Low key lighting, create suspense 
5. Dark colors
6. Settings are usually in isolated areas 

Sound:

1. Starts with slower tempo and builds up often
2. Slow or eerie music to create suspense and mystery/uncertainty
3. Silence
4. Diagetic sounds increased/heightened

Camera:

1. Shadows 
2. Quick cuts
3. Lots of close ups and extreme close ups 
4. lots of back shots, low key shots, and silhouette shots
5. Tilt shots and distorted shots to show discomfort 
6. High angle shots of antagonist to protagonist to show dominance over protagonist. 

Lighting:

1. Low key lighting
2. Shadows

Themes:

1. Story line designed to make the audience think that it could happen to them and feel more scared. 

Editing:

1. Lots of jump cuts but still has to make sense
2. Cross cutting to build suspense
3. Continuous editing can also be used to help the audience understand certain things.
4. Usually dark or grainy gradients are used in thrillers 
5. It can be edited to look black and white often 

Conventions we challenged:

1.  In the narrative their is no hero shown, so it makes it look as though the little girl is forever gone and no one will end up helping her.
2. No weapons are shown in our video and also not used to cause harm.
3. Also it is not in an isolated location and there are people around.
4. There are no scenes where the it is silent, there is always a scene where their is some sort of diagetic or non-diagetic sound. 
5. Besides from the credits, there are no quick cuts
6. There are only a few back shots and low key shots.
7. Only used tilt shots in the credits.
8. No jump cuts
9. No dark or grainy gradients used.
10. No black and white gradients either.

Conventions used:
-Low key lighting, because this adds the unknown effect like anything could jump out at any minute and it adds a scary look to it, also conotating with the fact nothing very good happens at night.

-shadows, i want to be able to show some sort of shadow effect where the shadow is behind the tall man because this could give the audience an idea of the fact that this man is fronting to the girl so that he can almost gain her trust a little bit but in reality he is just putting a front up in front of his sinister ideas.

-change in angles, the change in angles shows something almost distorted meaning that it may look okay at that point but there is something going on in the bigger picture that is dodgy and the audience will be able to see this as i would like to play around with the idea of when the little girl looks at the tall scary man she is looking on a skewed angle at first to show that he may look normal but there is something sinister in his "motives".

-low angle of the girl looking up at the tall man and a shot looking down on the girl from the POV of the tall man, this shows the effect of the tall scary man being dominant and stronger and dangerous, also the fact she is looking up to him gives us the sense he is very tall and scary.

-Dark clothing,The tall sketchy man will be wearing dark and ominous clothing to make him again shown as not being seen properly for what and who he really is.

Movies I took inspiration from:

After watching the following thriller films/thriller openings, get out, inception, split  I have been influenced by them in the way where I want to use the following theme used in get out, as well as the dark lighting. From inception I would want to take the action music in the background, and the danger element. From Split I want to use the fact the young girl is alone and isolated while everyone else is with each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nkLTAUfyA

Images of vision for setting:

These are a few images i found that was the same sought of look i wanted for the playground to make a more empty and isolated feel which makes it a bit scarier.

Question 2:

How does your product engage with audiences? How would you distribute it as a real media text? :

Target audience:
Our target audience is people aged from 16 and older who usually like thriller movies or movies that include mystery, suspense, violence, danger, and can be scary as well. I feel like we have been pretty successful in our efforts to make a movie that fits this target audience we have set ourselves, being able to add the violence and suspense aspects to it as well as making it a thriller movie and also making it have a scary aspect to it, we probably did not make it so that it was only for people 16 and older, but that was only as a guide line, as most thrillers are only PG13 or R13 and we wouldn't want it to be too scary, as then it would start going into a Horror genre. 

Distribution:
For our way of distribution i was thinking, because of the massive rise in people using streaming services as well as social media, i was thinking of doing most of the distribution through streaming services like Netflix, Neon, TVNZ on demand, Light box, and even YouTube. This will allow the viewers to be able to watch the movie from the comfort of their homes and also it can make it to smaller towns that might not have cinemas/ movie theaters because they can just watch it through streaming services. Although i would distribute through streaming services, I would also distribute through the cinemas, because it is also a place a lot of people still go to, just for the experience. This will also give it a lot more publicity. I would also use platforms such as YouTube and Instagram, as well as Facebook and other social media platforms to advertise our film.

Characters:
-Mum:

the Woman in the car who should be watching her daughter while she plays on the playground but instead she is sitting in her phone in the car. The phone is symbolism of distraction and how it was her mother downfall that she is ultimately kidnapped.

-Little girl:

Unnamed at the moment, the little girl is arguably the main/ most important character along with the kidnapper. In the scene we see her playing on the playground and then walking to the bathroom and eventually following the kidnapper to his car unaware she would b kidnapped. Her symbolism is her costume which is her bright vibrant clothes that make her stand out in the dark lighting,. Not only this though, it also shows her innocence and sweetness which is contrasted by the dark lighting and dark colors of the kidnapper.

-Kidnapper:

Also unnamed the kidnapper is probably equal to maybe more important to the story, in essence stalking the young girl trying to find the perfect moment to catch her off guard and eventually kidnap her. The symbolism used for him is, his van, the knife and gun in his car and, his dark clothes. So first, the dark clothes symbolize his dark and shady character not wanting to reveal his identity, secondly, his van, this is a common car/ carrier for kidnappers as it has no windows etc... it also is quite mysterious as it is dark in there with no windows again meaning it is hiding or concealing something. This, "thing" that is being concealed in the van is the gun/knife, which is the final symbol in the "movie", which symbolizes the danger and also makes us think, what is he going to use those for ?? and what is he going to do to her ?

Narrative:

At the beginning the girl is just playing on the playground , her mum has just left her to go to the bathroom. there are other kids around but she wants to stay by herself. A man then comes up to her and asks her if she wants a lolly, and she takes it . She then realizes that it is not good to take lollies from strangers and tries to run away, while she tries to run away however, the man chases her and grabs her pulling her over his shoulder and chucking her in the boot of his car. As the man is driving away the little girl screams and cries hitting the window. The mum then leaves the bathroom and notices her daughter missing, and tries to run and find her, but the man is already gone.

Editing/ Music:

I want to make the editing slow and not quick cuts because the slow cuts can emphasize that the girl cant escape and is not fast enough to get out. Also it stretches everything out and emphasizes everything making it that much more effective in making it more and more nerve racking and suspenseful making us want to know even more what will happen to the girl.

And then for the music, i used a lot of dark ominous music to add the scary and suspenseful aspect to it. Also i added extra sounds, like the action music for the chase scene, and a sound of the car boot closing, as well as a glitchy/scratchy sound for my logo at the end.

Question 3:

- in the first try we filmed at Kennedy park and this didn't go too well, we did not have the camera settings right for the lighting so as it started to get dark, you couldn't see a thing, also we didn't get the sound right as well and the rain ended up forcing us to have to leave.

- we then decided to try a closer and easier location the next day because of the bad filming on the day before, although grace picked this day, i was not able to make it because i had other commitments, apart from i wasn't there and that some shots did not carry verisimilitude, the filming looks like it went well and they managed to get quite a few good shots that work well.

In my peer revision, my peers told me to:

1. slow down the one scene where she is dropping the lolly to slow motion.
2. Add the chase music rather than just adding the eerie music the whole time. 
3. They also said for me to edit the car shots to make it look like it was cutting between the shots of the mum coming out the bathroom, making it look like it was happening at the same time.
4. Another point made was to draw out the establishing shot more to add the fact that the man is watching the girl even creepier.

-I ended up changing all of these things, making it have a much better effect to the movie.
-I was actually not there for the filming process, so i wont know what went well and what didn't, so i will ask my group for that input next time we film.

Question 4:

I added technologies like Adobe Premier pro, Adobe After affects, Adobe Photoshop.

A list of things i used:

https://ytmp3.cc/en13/