Evaluation

For my media coursework, I decided to make my own pre-production-script and productions-DVD cover and teaser poster for my film idea. The reason why I chose to do the script because I am good at language skills as they are one of my strengths, and scripts I find easier than a storyboard to use as they can get the image across better.

To start off with, I had to think of what type of genre I wanted my film to be; whether it was just a horror ( which I was informed is a very popular choice) or if I wanted it to be a thriller. I decided to look up what was needed in terms of codes and conventions for a thriller, but when I looked I found that there were so many different types of thriller: my one, I decided would be a psychological one, one that plays with the mind and makes you shake with suspense. So I then looked up what I would need for a psychological thriller and found these;

Codes and Conventions of a Thriller movie;

>Death>Reality

>low level lighting
>quick edits, and camera changes
>High tension music
>Flashbacks
>Claustrophobic spaces
>Black and white
>Alfred Hitchcock
>David Lynch
>Martin Scorsese

For the title of my film, I researched different films that had similar film ideas to mine and tried to think of a title that would represent my idea but not give it away as soon as someone read it. I looked at different musical words with other adjectives and came up with these ideas and after asking those from my target audience they agreed that Forbidden Pieces would be the best title.

>Swinging Life. > Forbidden Pieces
> Crescendoing complications > Paper Cut

Usually in a psychological thriller, the target audience is those who are above the age of 18 and this is because of some of the characters may have psychological illnesses that younger viewers would find disturbing. However, for my film Forbidden Pieces, I have lowered my target audience to 15 because there is not going to be a lot of bloody scenes. My character does in the end go insane after loosing everything, and commits suicide – not that you see her commit suicide just her feet hanging, meaning it is suitable for slightly younger teens.This is because some of the scenes I believe a younger audience wouldn’t understand, yet there are parts that I believe students can relate to better than adults – that is also why I have based my film in a school with a student around education – something that influences students every day, or that they can relate to everyday. I then asked them using my questionnaire and series of questions; one being what they would like to see in a psychological thriller, nearly all of them said suspense,death, blood and one that makes you really think. So with their list of most popular everyday uses I have added a few to my film, including laptops, phones and school equipment as well as music. I also made sure that my questionaires went to those who weren't just females, they were both male and female. Past research has shown that women are more attracted to psychological thrillers, because they enjoy the mystery and story behind events that take place in thriller films.

　

My script research has come from many different things, the first from looking at thriller scripts online. I found that the website: http://www.simplyscripts.com/genre/thriller-scripts.html was really helpful, as it gave me lots of different thriller scripts to look up. I used the scripts from 13 Ghosts, and Sixth Sense to help me, and I realised when and where I had to make things bold, or stand out more by putting them into caps. I also looked at what my target audience would like to see in a thriller film, and used that in my script. As well as making the dialogue modern but still sounding posh or proper English at some parts as the school is for the elite.

I also looked then, at similar style films and found:

The Pianist

Black Swan

Suicide Room

Donnie Darko

Women in Black

As for music for my film, I discussed with my target audience what they would prefer, and the majority of them said that true classical music always added suspense to a film, and that if it was more modern music not many may want to watch it because they don't like that music.

　

Black Swan and Donnie Darko analysis: 　

　

BLACK SWAN:

The crack down her face shows the audience that this film isn’t just going to be an ordinary ballet movie, and can promise a twist to a classic tale.

We can tell that it’s going to be a ballet movie because of the white feathers in her hair and the skin coloured straps of a top tend to be what ballerina’s wear.

The colours on this poster are black, white, a small hint of redness on the lips. These colours help to denote purity, innocence and yet mystery.

By having her skin so smooth, we can also gather that she must be young. So by having the crack it then shows that something’s wrong or broken.

The crack could also mean that her appearance is just a cover and that inside she could be suffering an emotional/intellectual breakdown. The target audience for this film would be both dancers, and teens who like psychological horror.

The title BLACK SWAN is in this black font that seems rather simple, yet it stands out better in comparison to the rest of the film as its set over her pale complexion. The simplicity of her it will draw the audience’s attention even more.

DONNIE DARKO:

The back of this cover is set in the three main basic colours; black, white, and blue. This can be to represent the darkness and also blue makes things look mysterious where as white helps to make things stand out. The pictures have all been cropped into small stick-like photo frames, which have needle-sharp points making even them look dangerous for the back cover.

The target audience for this film would be adolescence between the ages of 16-24. The film wouldn’t get many teenagers to watch it because the covers showing it to be a sort of slasher movie when really it’s a psychological sci-fi thriller.

The titles font is lit, setting it from the background - which you see a boy with an evil look in his eyes, and a sly grin; meaning that he is planning something, and by holding the axe it can’t be a good thing. The name DARKO could have been thought of because the director wanted this psychological to be deep, and by using this name it’s a hidden sign that the films going to be dark.

I will admit, I do like how both my productions have turned out, but I am still sceptical about how my DVD cover has turned out. The font, I also believe does not quite represent the film to how I had first imagined it, but if this is what my target audience prefer then that is how I will make it - after all I need them to approve of it.

I asked the same group of people that I done the questionnaire on, about my DVD cover, poster, and script and they asked me to change a few things, one being the font to how it is now, to add a teddy onto the piano to show that the legs on the side belong to a younger girl as well as darkening her and a lack of music in the background.

Some of my strengths when creating these media productions would be, my communication capability; my language skills, as I have previously mentioned are what I believe is one of my strong points - as shown in my script and the DVD's blurb. Another one being my photography, I often experiment with my own photographs so I knew straight away that this wouldn't be too much a problem to me. My creativity many have commented would be a strong point as I can come up with stories easily, considering my imagination is always on the go with new ideas, and I believe my not only my DVD cover, but my teaser poster helps to show this. Another strength would be that I am a student studying psychology and love pyschological thrillers anyway; having watched plenty my self.
My first weakness when doing these productions, would have to be my lack of technology knowledge. I prefer to paint or write it myself, so when it came to editing, I am still a beginner into it. Another weakness would be that I had no idea how to write a script; I knew what had to go in it, and things that I wanted to have - this is where my research came in handy.

How I could improve- simply by doing more research for one. There's never a thing called too much research, there is always more I can do on things, for example studied seperate groups of my target audience, so that I could investigate independent groups not just the one. The poster if I done it again, would have a darker colour scheme to it to make it not look so light, or have some dramatic lighting affect, so that the background would be contrasted differently to the main focus point, showing off the main focus of her feet and teddy.