We have named our film Normative Behaviour, this is a psychological term meaning normal behaviour which is ironic because even as a psychology student, Sophie has such a Freudian obsession that she has to do something about it.
The opening of our psychological thriller contains the mainstream style technical aspects including mainly close ups, to emphasize emotion of the characters and dehumanises their facial features, leaving the audience disorientated. Mid shots for emphasis on body language, and a non-linear narrative structure to give normative behaviour an independant edge; similar to Jonathan Nolan’s Memento which was an independent film. Mainly panning shots were used because we had a limited amount of space with our set, otherwise we could have made our film more typical by using the thriller convention of a tracking crane shot to explore and introduce the setting to the audience. Suspense was created especially through the use of the close up of Sophie, our lead character’s lips whist she was applying lipstick which is quite seductive.
We used the typical conventions of a thriller similar to Hitchcock’s Psycho because the female is the protagonist. Her darker side comes through to the camera because we kept the mise en scene so to contrast between her and her environment which consists of bright colours and posters like a typical girly dorm room. The dangerous side of her is represented during the ritualistic process, which was when she applies her lipstick, lights her cigarette and then commits the murder. This shows how meticulous she is and emphasizes her obsession. Obsession has remained a theme throughout the opening sequence. This has been well represented through the use of music, because at first it seems harmless but then the music reaches a climax along with the visual aspects, which is especially typical of the thriller genre.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The opening sequence of my thriller represents teenage students, in particular female university students as threatening because to be able to go into university, one must have a passion for education, but soon enough the good grades and a good lecturer turn into an obsession which leads to consequences that are devastating. Furthermore my opening steers away from the stereotypical view of a teenager, and represents them as complicatedly deep and intellectual because of the narrative.
In addition my opening makes the audience wonder how on earth a female teenager could lure a fully grown man into her dorm room and kill him, thus provoking a sense of role reversal and represents Sophie as all the more dangerous. The codes of clothing indicate that the two main characters are like the people we see on the street on a day to day basis thus making us more conscious of our environment which includes the people we hold dear. The opening of my thriller has a ritual, a sacrifice and then a prayer process in which Sophie takes part in and the codes of these gestures connote to the audience how abnormal she is, because due to her actions she can be classed as having obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
A mainstream movie institution would be best to distribute my media product so an ideal partner would be Working Title which is now a branch of Universal Pictures. Working Title have recently released a psychological thriller named Hush which is also mainstream for the British target audience, similarly we have aimed our film at the mainstream British audience. Before, Working Title Films use to be an independant film company but have recently merged with American conglomerates Universal Pictures, however, Working Title still have the independant artistic motivations from when they were an independant company, thus helping us create a large audience with maximum profit input.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
I am aiming my media product at 15 + mainstream target audience in order to get maximum profit and also the content of my movie will be psychologically complex with some explicit language and violence that should not be imitated, therefore it would not be suitable for children under 15. If we passed it to the British Board of Film Classification then they would also pass it as a 15+. Furthermore our research which we were unable to put on the blog states that the majority of the poeple we gave our questionnaires to preferred psychological thrillers above the rest of the genre. While doing our audience research, we found that the key factor that makes a good thriller was the narrative.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
In order to attract the mainstream audience, I have kept the opening sequence with a simple narrative which everyone can relate to. It is about facing and coping with rejection thus the audience don’t feel like they are being superimposed on by the lead character with their sense of reality but allows the audience to feel pitty towards sophie because they gain a sense of nostalgia from when things didn't go according to plan for themselves. The audience are actually on the same level of the main character Sophie. The use of fades and dissolves preserves the mystery of Sophie and how confused and jumbled her mind is. At the mid point of the movie, we view a shot of Joseph the lecturer from the eyes of Sophie. The main focus is on the lips connoting the passion she feels, letting the audience see from her perspective.The way advertisement spread through to the audience to attract them was by word of mouth and through Web 2.0 in particular the facilities of communication i.e email, links and social networking sites, thus keeping up to date with the perceived second generation of the internet as well as the younger generation of the audience.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
I learnt to use a Mac computer and I learnt the basics of using editing software for films. We used the editing package "Imovie". Cutting clips was a major part of the production, as the visual aspects were the most important because that is what we considered to either make or break our thriller. However with the combination of well developed music, gave a "creepy" atmosphere. When we overlayed the music, we had to cut the sequence near to the end, for a dramatic build up of the voice over, and we also controlled and decreased the sound. We layed a voice over on to the transition sequence, for emphasis on the pain and confusion Sophie felt. In order to cut clips for sound and image we went through the same process of selecting the clip and what part of it we wanted to crop, then go in to "edit" and then "split video clip at play head".
When we were making the voice over, we filmed it on the camera and then imported it as a video format from the camera, on to the computer, to Imovie then we selected the whole of that clip, clicked onto edit and selected extract sound, then chopped it into smaller pieces and played around with the order they went in. In terms of using a video camera, I learnt how to handle it, this included experimenting with the camera manually and changing the aperture, which created the effect of confusion. Learning what all the components do on the camera was probably the most easiest of the tasks as I am familiar with a camera.
Last but not least, I uploaded the final sequence of my film onto youtube which took a very long time, I learnt how to export video's in this part of the project, and shrink files. after this project I feel much more confident with handling technology, even if I have never used it before, I now feel like I can take care of anything thrown at me.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full project?
Looking back to the preliminary, task I think that we have improved so much becuase it was the first time that we handled real media equipment, we especially struggled with the editing for the preliminary task and therefore our piece looks unprofessional, and unfinished. Our preliminary task was to film two people that exchange two sentences, now looking back, I can safely say that our main task film is a very big improvement. We have learnt to use a range of shots for different types of effects, using the camera manually and automatically, and editing to the best of my ability in the limited time and help I had. I have also progressed in the construction of the film as I always thought that the best kind of opening was a linear one, but after I saw Memento I was convinced otherwise.
From my point of view I think that using a story board is necessary because it sets the entire guidelines and saves you from straying from the main idea and wasting time. The most important thing that I have learnt is that how music affects the atmosphere, the mood and the whole representational issues of characters within my film. Furthermore I think I have learnt to handle things calmly when they don’t go to plan and to use time constructively even when the situation says otherwise.
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