2. DVD
COVER

3. Conventions
Our main task combined the same fragments associated with thriller genres. These include what
camera angles and movements, lighting, sound and editing you use. These are all very
important because with the right camera angles and movements, lighting, sound and editing you
can shape a movie into a good thriller. For example…
Camera Angles/Movements:
- Low angle, point of view, extreme
close up shots, panning
movements.
Lighting:
- Low key and under lighting.
Sound:
- Ambient, dark, slow and low
sounds or music.
Editing:
- Sharp cuts.
These help to create emotion and suspense while creating a frightening and an eerie
atmosphere.

4. Connotations
In our main task we also took in color connotations into consideration.
For Example…
- At the beginning of our piece Yas is wearing a red jacket. Red symbolizes strength as
well as danger, it also symbolizes strong emotions.
- She shows strength by saying that they need to get to the border as she promised that
she would keep her friend Sofia safe.
- She shows strong emotions by getting upset but still not giving up. They’re in danger
because someone is after them and they’re all alone.
- Sofia is wearing a black jacket. Black symbolizes fear and sadness.
- She shows fear and sadness because she’s also frightened. Sadness because they’re
lost and still have a long time to get to the border.

5. Research
- After considering different storylines and genres we decided to create a horror/thriller opening
sequence.
- We had a lot of different ideas for the project; we looked at different film companies and their titles.
- Our group looked into ‘Rogue Pictures’ they produce ‘high-quality suspense, action, thrillers and
urban features with mainstream appeal and franchise potential’.
- We looked at 4 different trailers from the many titles of Rogue Pictures; these include, The Return, The
Unborn, The road The Strangers and Cry Wolf.
- Each of these trailers had a lot of common, but the sound used in each trailer had the most
similarities. It’s very dark, mysterious and sharp. It also contains a lot of non-diegetic sound, for
example, screams and quick breaths. There are also times in the trailers where it goes quiet and
suddenly there’s a loud noise or a scream etc.
- We created a questionnaire to gather information of what genres people mostly enjoy watching,
how many times they watch movies and what they expected from horror/thriller movies.

6. Planning
- We gathered all the different information from our research, this includes
questionnaires and watching different trailers.
We thought of a storyline and then we decided where it would take place, how many
people were going to be in the film, what props and costumes, what camera angles
and movements would be suitable etc.
- Originally we were all going to act in our project, however it was then decided that
two people would be enough (Yas and Sofia.)
- Two young females making their way to the border.
- They would be wearing rough jeans and big jackets and boots as it is cold and as it
was set in a barn. Make-up would include messy hair and messy eye make-up.
- Not many props were used except from a block of wood to start off our opening
sequence as we wanted to focus on the two young females all alone desperate to get
to the border and see their families again.

7. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real life media?
During the process of creating our media, our product has used and developed
typical conventions from a typical thriller film. This is to enforce the fact that this
is a thriller film. Those following conventions (as mentioned before) are, dark
lighting, dark theme, stereotypes of characters and setting, and creating
enigma. We decided to change our film from being a typical thriller movie. We
wanted to challenge the stereotypes and decided to use two females as the
main characters rather than like in most thrillers where the females are always
seen to be the more vulnerable ones who are in need of help.
Sub genres are often used in thrillers which are for example, crime, action,
psychological etc. We wanted out film to be very mysterious so that you
wouldn't be able to tell just from the opening which subgenre it fits into, which
would only make it more interesting for the audience as they would want to
watch more. I think the fact that our opening doesn't give to much away only
makes the viewer want to carry on watching as they want to find out why or
what something is happening. We thought one very effective way of doing this
was to include a Voice-over. Our voice over gives a very rough idea that the
girls seem to be running away from someone or something and towards
something else, the border. Yet the Voice-over doesn't give away why, or how.
It keeps the suspense going as the audience isn't sure as to why they are
running away.

8. The isolated location is often a convention of a thriller movie. We knew straight away
when we found our location that it would be perfect for our type of genre that we
were filming. An isolated location creates more tension as if anything were to
happen, there is no one to help you. This makes our characters more vunerable,
especially as they do not know the area themselves, it makes the whole thing seem
more dangerous, and increases the audiences fear.
In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real life media?

9. How does your media product
represent a particular social group?
 Teenagers, in our type of genre that we have chosen, thrillers,
especially females, are usually seen as being the ones who are naive,
oblivious, and insecure of what's happening around them. Our product
represents the social group of girls. Stereotypically they are portrayed
as vulnerable, and their inability to defend or be able to look after
themselves. These stereotypes increase the fear of the audience as it
keeps them on guard thinking the girls will live up to their stereotype.
 In our opening, we decided to challenge this stereotype. Instead of
using two male characters, we decided to open our film with two
female characters. The beginning alone where one of the girls is
talking to the camera about their journey, demonstrates and
introduces you to the the fact these girls have been surviving for
weeks, therefore challenging the stereotype that girls are weaker, and
unable to protect themselves, as our characters have been doing just
so.

10. What kind of media institution might distribute
your media product and why?
Realistically, our media product is most probably not likely to be a major movie
blockbuster. We are really happy with our outcome however it does not compare
to professional productions, as we don't have a big budget, Hollywood a list
actors, a short time scale, or the highest quality cameras.
The most realistic way of distributing this movie would be an Internet release.
Nowadays, people our age, our target audience, mostly watch films online
anyways, whether it's on YouTube, Netflix, or even illegal sites. We would look into
uploading it onto sharing sites such a YouTube or vimeo. Doing this would make it
world wide accessible, and people can share it, but without promotion from a big
institution company, it is unlikely to receive many views.
If our film was to be distributed, our chosen institution would be 'Rogue Pictures'. As
mentioned in our initial research on all of our blogs, Rogue pictures, has around 25
titles under its name with films, there disperse, "high-quality suspense, action, thriller
and urban features with mainstream appeal and franchise potential". We thought
this was the perfect one for us as they only release genres as already mentioned.
They have movies such as Hot Fuzz, The Strangers etc.. Under their name.

11. Who would be the audience
for your media product?
 We feel like our main target audience is aged 15- 35.
 Film Classification.-
 As a group we classified our film as a 15. this was well thought out from the beginning.
 We knew our film wouldn’t be child friendly as (in the opening AND the rest of the film) there
would be scenes of violence, moderate language and crime. So to find out what would be a
suitable classification we went to the British Board of Film Classification website this was really
interesting as we found out lots more about other ratings too.
 12A or 15?
 We weren’t sure whether it would come under a 12A or 15. However we were looking at the
differences between 12′s and 15′s and it was clear that although a 12 allows some allowance for
puns on strong language, aggressive uses of strong language may result in a film or DVD to be
placed at the 15 category. Another point we found is, in a 12 there should be no emphasis on
injuries or blood, but in our storyline for our film there will be bloody scenes and violence.

12. How did we attract/address out audience.
 Thriller
 When we sent out our questionnaire most people
 By using actors our audience age
 By using a hand help camera

13. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES
FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS
PRODUCT?
I think, as a group we have definitely learnt
a lot throughout the process of creating out
opening. When we first started on our
preliminary task, Sofia, Magda and Emily
had never edited before. We all knew how
to use a camera, but we were never away
of certain rules you have to follow, for
example, the 180° rule.. Which we happen
to have broken in our preliminary! Once
everyone in the group had grasped how to
to do this, we found everything pretty
straight forward.

14. Lights
One of the difficulties we faced was with the lighting. As we were
filming in a closed environment, the barn didn't allow us to
make the scene look as dark as we wanted it to as there were
lots of gaps in the roof which we couldn't reach that was letting
light through, so we found it hard to create that dark settings to
create the mood. I think if we were to do this again, we would
have to find a way to cover the gaps and holes and create a
controlled lighting environment with artificial lights. I think most
of our shots do look effective, we wanted them to look cold, and
not very colourful to create a dark and mysterious atmosphere.

15. Progression from the preliminary Script.
What was our preliminary task?
The preliminary task was the first time in experiencing in depth filming.
For some of us it was our first time writing editing as well.
Since the Preliminary we have improved our script work and editing and it has come through on our end
product of our film opening.
As a group we feel we have mainly improved with filming.
We thought more about mise en scene.
Over all we feel we have progressed a lot since the preliminary task.

16. Camera Shots

17. Editing Techniques

18. Match On Action – Shot Reverse Shot

19. From Page to Screen