Genre: Thriller

Thriller is "a broad genre, usually having a number of sub genres". Thriller films intend to create suspicion, excitement and anticipation. The danger of the protagonist tends to be the main emphasis in thriller films. Throughout a thriller, audience will be kept alert seeing the tension build leading to a highly stressful climax. This simgle-mided goal is relentlessly pursued throughout. Examples of thrillers are The Great Escape and The Silence of the Lambs.

Types of Characters in Thrillers

• Convicts
• Criminals
• Assassins
• Innocent victims
• Psychotic individuals
• Police officers
• Spies

Common themes of Thrillers

• Terrorism
• Political conspiracy
• Pursuit
• Romantic triangles
• These themes most often lead to murder.

One of the most famous directors/screenwriters/producers of thriller films was Alfred Hitchcock. Due to his films creating psychological suspense, he was nicknamed the "man of suspense".

Codes and Conventions of a Thriller

• Low key lighting
• Quick cuts
• Shadows
• Tension music
• Changes in the angle of shots
• Diegetic sound of breathing
• Montage of shots
• Protagonist  is the mercy of the Antagonist 

Editing

The director will include lots of jumps cuts because there will be things happening that the audience is unaware of but is essential for the film to make sense. Cross cutting is a key point in editing as it is used to build suspense which is essential for a thriller. Continues editing is used to help the audience the film better.

Sound
Music is essential in any film to understand the mood of the characters and hint at a significant part in the film. In a thriller it adds suspense and tension. It will often start at a slow pace and then build up to make the shots more dramatic for the audience.

Cinematography
There will be a lot of close ups and extreme close ups of the protagonist character. This is often to show their emotions and it can also be used to focus on props which will aid the narrative.
The shots of the antagonist character will be cut quickly and will aim to hide their identity, for example, a shot of their back, a low key shot showing their silhouette or their shadow.

Lighting Ideas for Main Task

https://youtu.be/AL_6gA_BVtA

The genre of our main task is a sic-fi/thriller. Our group looked at a number of films that could be similar in plot to ours or have similar themes. A film that we were intrigued by was Super 8. Above is a link to a very dramatic scene that begins the supernatural occurrences in the film. The lighting used in the film inspired us to be creative with our own lighting. We are planning to use our lighting to emphasise the danger that the teenagers are in and also to show the theme of the supernatural. Super 8's lighting created tense scenes which caused the audience to be curious as to what was going to happen yet. It also helped to create suspicion as to what was going on and awe that it was really happening to the characters. We plan to use a lot of low-key lighting in our film 'Manifesto' as it adds to the mystery. Our lights will have colours such as blue and purple that will help give an erie look to the scene. Blue is a cold colour but it emphasises innocence making it suitable for our film. Purple conveys mystery making the audience more inquisitive.

This is a wide shot that is used in Super 8 to help set the scene. The blue lights around give the audience information that something is about to happen. It creates a supernatural feel and the audience will then begin to have questions about the scene which will be answered later. The street light helps to light the characters and shows us the scenery which emphasises how alone they alone.

This is a mid-shot at a low angle. This shows that the character closest to the camera has authority and is the leader of the group. The light behind makes them more visible. It also adds a tone of mystery. The enigma is about to appear for the first time. 

The red lights shown here emphasise their surroundings. The train track becomes obvious. This hints to the audience that something is about to happen involving the train tracks. As the lights are spread out they light up a wider area but are also alone similar to the characters. Red represents danger and they could be warning the audience that the characters are going to be in danger very soon.

The purple/blue light shown here helps to add to the supernatural theme. It is typical of any film that involves supernatural occurrences. As it is shown at a high level, the audience can tell that whatever is causing this is extremely powerful.

Low-key lighting emphasises the darkness of the night. The red lights in the distance continue glowing which is fitting as it shows life still going on after the disaster. The red colour shows that there is more danger and similar incidents to come. The lights on the train station show that it has been unaffected and will continue to be used. The audience must wait to find out more.

Evaluation of Preliminary: Zombiequality

In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms or conventions of real media products?
Zombiequality both develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products. It follows and develops the forms and conventions of many comedy films with its simplistic type however, at the same time, it also challenges them as the cause of the comedy films through a very quirky character that isn't very typical of most real media products. The comedy of the bizarre/peculiar Steve the zombie challenged what people would expect to see from a character that initially appeared to be so frightening. It also challenges the style of horror films with its comedic twist on the typical zombie-related films that have become common media products recently. 

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We learnt that our film was viewed by all as comedic and that people believed it worked well. We entered the film into the Cinemagic Young Filmmaker Festival and it came first place overall. Our group believe that this shows audience thoroughly enjoyed watching the film and that it created the effect that our group was going for. 

However, we also received some critical feedback from viewers who were able to point out some room for improvement to us. This feedback helped give us ideas of how to improve our skills and how to use them as effectively as possibly in our main task.
Our film was aimed at a specific age group of teenagers and young adults. The part of the audience that responded best to the film were of the specific age group. The reason that we chose them as our target age group is because they are the most common age group know to watch comedy and horror and so would appreciate it most. It was clear that some of the younger audience were not appreciating the film as much due to their lack of understanding. The adults who were judging the films seemed to very much appreciate the cinematography, editing and story-telling in the film and understood the mockumentary style. Ou group felt that it was quite an achievement that adults also enjoy watching the film even though we didn't originally plan it for their age range.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

In the beginning of our preparation we collected a number of photos of zombie characters from films and TV shows from Google Images and Pinterest which we used to help us get an initial idea of how Steve the zombie was going to look. 

We all watched zombie make-up tutorials online to help give us information on how to create the appearance of a zombie on our actor. We found thee videos to be very informative, however, we changed the look slightly for Steve so as to add to the comedic effect.

As I was assigned the role of cinematographer, I watch a number of videos online, mostly from YouTube, that explained cinematography to me and helped me to learn new facts about the art of cinematography. I was therefore able to practise at home with my camera, using these videos as guidance, to improve by cinematography skills before the shooting day.

Some props in Zombiequality, such as the fake hand, were bought online. We looked up Halloween props on different shops' online stores in order to find the right one for the film. This helped us to have more time to put into crucial parts of our planning instead of spending hours in shops trying to find the right props.

Our group created a Facebook group in order to help organise our shooting day. Our director posted the schedule for the day on to the group and then we had to all confirm that we could make the shoot otherwise the day would have to have been rescheduled. 

One of the films that inspired us to make Zombiequality was What We Do In The Shadows. We used YouTube to watch any scenes of the film that were available. After that, we read online reviews of the film from film critics who explained just what made the film work so well.

Preliminary Filming

We filmed our preliminary 'Zombiequality' in one day. We met outside our first shooting location. Our director then spoke to the cinematographers about what shots were going to be needed. Then the actors were told what to do while we set up cameras and tripods.
Filming began in the city centre which made getting shots slightly challenging due to the amount of people that were there. We set up two cameras on tripods and also used a handheld camera. This helped us to have a range of shots to choose from when editing.
We then had to spend approximately 30 minutes walking to our next location. This location was where the rest of the filming occurred. We filmed at a student house which we used as Steve's house. A scene was shot in the upstairs for when Steve woke up and a later two scenes were filmed downstairs.
Part of the final scene was filmed in the street outside the house. We also filmed in a street nearby for the scene in which the boy saw Steve and ran away frightened. Our intention for using it was that it was empty and the surrounding streets were quiet so there wouldn't be much disruption.
After filming and editing was completed we decided to enter our preliminary into the Cinemagic Young Filmmaker Festival. Our film was chosen to be screened on October 31st at the Ulster Museum as part of the event. We were lucky enough to win first place with Zombiequality which was a huge achievement for our group.

Todorov's Narrative Theory

Todorov's narrative theory basically states that most stories or plot lines follow the same pattern or path. There are 5 steps in this pattern:

1. The first part of the story will display a happy start, where the majority of characters are content and everything is as it should be. So, in The Simpsons Movie, at the beginning everything is normal and Homer is just doing chores.

2. the second part of the story will feature a problem or something will disrupt the happiness. In The Simpsons Movie, it begins when Homer saves a pig.

3. Realisation is the part of the plot when everyone realises the problem and it is chaos. So, the Simpsons are kicked out of Springfield and forced to move to Alaska.

4. Restored order is the part of the plot when the characters attempt to repair the damage and restore the problem. So, the Simpsons go back and save Springfield.

5. Equilibrium Again: This is the final part of the plot where the problem is solved and normality can resume again. So, the dome is blown up and everyone is free.

Levi Strauss and His Approach To Narrative

• Claude Levi Strauss studied hundreds of myths and legends all around the world, from that he found out that we as humans make sense of the world, people and events by seeing and using binary opposites.
• He found out that narratives are arranged around the conflict of binary opposites.

• In the mid-20th century, two major European academic thinkers, Claude Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes, came together and discovered that the way we understand certain words does not depend so much on the meaning that they directly contain, but much more by our understanding of the difference between the word and its opposite or, as they called it, 'binary opposite'.
• They realised that words simply act as symbols for society's ideas and that the meaning of words was a relationship rather than a fixed idea just a relationship between opposing ideas.

Examples are; Good vs Evil, Peace vs War, Black vs White, Ignorance vs Wisdom, Civilised vs       Savage and Young vs Old.

Basically, Levi Strauss' theory is that the conflict is based around the binary opposites and that the binary opposites are the central climax of a narrative structure.

Propp's Theory

Propp studied various Russian fairytales, and discovered that there are always eight main character types present. These are:

Hero
Traditionally the hero is a male protagonist whose role it is to restore normality or equilibrium. He does this by defeating the villain(s) and winning the love of the heroine.

Villain
The villain is the cause of the disruption and the enemy of the hero. The villain may also be a threat to the safety and well-being of the heroine.

Dispatcher
The dispatcher sends the hero on a journey to restore equilibrium. The dispatcher may also be the father or father figure of the heroine, sending the hero on a quest to see if he is worthy of his daughter.

Donor
The donor gives the hero something to help him along his journey. This gift may be a piece of advice, a skill or an object such as a weapon.

Helper
The helper assists the hero in restoring equilibrium. The helper may be a sidekick, with the hero throughout, or someone he meets along the way.

Heroine
The heroine is usually a passive and vulnerable character, threatened by the villain and needing rescuing by the hero.

False Hero
The false character is a character who initially seems to be on the side of the hero but who turns against him or deceives him.