Thriller Evaluation

After watching examples of thriller openings we were given an idea of the conventions which were used in real thriller movie openings. As we watched clips to help us gather ideas on creating a thriller of our own, we made notes on how the genre of the thriller was shown, what was suspenseful, how was suspense created and why it was so effective. Suspense is an essential ingredient when creating a thriller opening, as a thriller is all about creating tension and suspense. From watching the clips of thriller openings, I identified that the key element in creating suspense was sound. I realised this when watching the opening of ‘The Shining’
where the non-diagetic sound starts off low and gradually becomes louder when the camera is following the car. I believe that the use of sound in my thriller has created the perfect tense mood, as were we listening to the feedback from our class after watching our thrillers; we were told that the non-diagetic sound in the opening shot made the fan seem like a cage. This worked really well with the concept of our thriller.

I think that my media product could attract any type social groups, ages ranging from 16 to late twenties, however, people older than that may also find it interesting to watch. After our audience feedback, I think that our male audience may be much larger than the female as the majority of males seem to find supernatural and sci-fi thrillers more interesting than females. I do not think that my thriller is aimed at a particular race or class as it can be an interesting thriller for any kind.

I personally believe that my thriller would be released over the internet and after having thousands of views it would be recognised by media institution giant like Universal Pictures.
I believe that it has the potential to attract a lot of different types of audiences and would be distributed around the world. It would then later on be released on DVD and I am sure that it would sell record-breaking figures. Another technique I would use to use advertising to attract my audience for my thriller would be advertising very short trailers on television towards the later hours of the day, (after 7pm) as younger children may find the trailer scary as it is based on a supernatural figure. I believe that the use of broadcasting my thriller trailer towards the night would be even better as that is the approximate time that our target audience would be watching television or simply scanning through channels.
After seeing my thriller being shown in the cinema (Vue) on the premier of all the groups’ thrillers, I was very happy to hear the positive comments being shouted out in the cinema. A few comments include; ‘Oooh’, ‘Nice effect’, and ‘Good sound effects, I thought they were real’.


If I were to describe the main type of audience which my thriller would attract it would be;

- Mainstream
- Demographically described as an ‘aspirer’
- George aged between 17-19
- Watches supernatural and sci-fi thrillers
- Enjoys going to the cinema with friends
- Studies something related to the media
- Plays video games on his PS3
- Dresses in H&M like most average teenagers



To attract an audience I would make sure that I would be advertising on particular sites such as; Facebook, Myspace, Bebo and Youtube. These sites are known to be used by mostly teenagers, I would make sure that I would also create a fan club page on the most popular site, this would help attract more and more audience as it would attract people’s attention to why people are signing up, it must be a good film and so on. At first, to create some sort of commotion, I would only use 3 different shots each about a second long for the advertisement without the title (Dis-Connected).
This would make the reader want to know what the advertisement is about and what is happening in the shots as they are very short. I would firstly advertise this on Facebook where Facebook users can see it and start talking about it and word of type would help spread the word and add onto the publicity. Also, another way which I would ensure to attract a large audience is by using well known and recognised actors and actresses. For the role of the doctor I would use Will Smith and Julia Stiles as the supernatural character as they are both highly recognised and would attract a very large audience as it would be a contrast of two successful actors in the same thriller.

In the process of constructing my thriller, I used software’s and new technology I was not so familiar with. I was not so familiar with was the Soundtrack and Live Type software however, it got easier as I started to use it more frequent.
I did not find any difficulty when creating the soundtrack and the opening credits for my thriller. Knowing more about the software made me more confident when we were faced with some difficulties i.e. when the soundtrack did not match the action. The soundtrack was ultimately the most important element in my thriller as it was the key ingredient to create a tense mood and suspense. To ensure that the action and soundtrack of my thriller flowed smoothly in unison, I had to make sure that not only the seconds matched the action but also the milliseconds. I found minimal difficulty when using the Final Cut Pro software as I had previous experience, this helped a large amount. Using the camera was also not such a difficult task but we did however, experience quite an embarrassing moment. While we were out filming the last few shots of Selma in King’s Cross, what we thought we had been filming wasn’t being filmed. After we watched back what we had filmed, we realised that when we thought the camera was filming, it actually wasn’t, therefore, there were many shots where I come into view directing Henok on what angles he should use the camera and film what parts of Selma to create suspension and that the audience should be able to assume or identify that there is something slightly unusual about her and her actions.
A process that I thought was quite difficult was logging and capturing, it needed a lot of patience and time as there were so many shots that we had taken. I particularly found logging and capturing more difficult than the other processes because if we did not log and capture the shots correctly, not allowing enough time on shots, it would not make sense when they were all put together and made into match cuts. Another process I found quite challenging was blogging everything about the progress of my thriller online at www.blogger.com, for this reason internet played a big role in this project. The blogger site was used as an online diary to continuously display information on what we had done and how far we had come. I found this challenging at times as sometimes I forgot to blog about my lessons and found it even more difficult when trying to catch up and remember all the things we had done to blog about it. However I believe that the use of blogger on the internet can really create an enormous audience as the majority of our target audience is known to use the internet and that we can upload our video onto it where people can see it. A few other sites where uploaded videos may create a big audience would be; Facebook, YouTube, Myspace, and Vimeo. These sites are all known to create the most publicity which can widen the potential of my thriller even more.

Looking back at my preliminary tasks before being given the task to create a two-minute thriller opening, I believe that I have learnt an enormous amount in the process of it. I especially learnt a great about match cuts and the use of Match Cut Pro software. Through my experience with using Match Cut Pro, I have learnt that everything has to be in its perfect order and getting the timing correct is absolutely essential. Before being taught about match cuts, I did not know that they used two similar shots and put them together to ensure a smooth flow. I have learnt that creating even two-minute opening sequence needs a lot of time and effort, a lot of planning and storyboarding. Another skill that I gained from creating my thriller opening is to work well together as a supportive team.