Introduction

Hi, my name is Rebecca Ogunmola,this is my personal media studies blog. This Blog allows you to see my personal work which will include my evaluation and analysis's of thrillers for my AS Media Studies Coursework. I will be taking the role of director in our groups upcoming opening sequence to a thriller called 'Unsuspected'.

Analysis of CSI MIAMI- Triller

Characters – From this episode we can see that the main characters (the protagonist)are willing to do anything to help people even if it means putting their own lives in danger. we can see also from the the main antagonist would also do anything to achieve his goal and would wipe-out anyone that's in his way even if it means killings his own gang members.

The protagonist 'everyman' qualities established thought scientific knowledge and through experience as they have been working for many years.

Narratives – Enigmas created in the thriller are when a gang member has been killed, we find out later in the film that he is killed by a gang member for selling drugs which is a gang rule not to. Another enigma created is a mark on the dead woman's cheek as they continue their investigation we find out the mark on her face is from a grenade and that the woman was scared to death by it.More enigma's are created in the thriller when we don't find out what happens to the pregnant woman's baby and who the father of the bay might be. When we see Crow flying in the sky it raises enigmas as we wonder what is going to happen next and why they are flying by.when looking at a cover of a package the audience is put in suspense to whose name it might be,and why Celia ( the pregnant woman)was at the Livingstone's on her day off as the narrative progresses we find out that immigration ask her to listen in on phone calls at the Livingstone's which put her in great danger.

Suspense is created in individual scenes in the beginning at the funeral when the casket opens, who paid for the funeral as the son was in prison so could afford it. non-diegetic music is used to create suspense as when they go to the Livingstone's house a slow heart beat sound builds up the suspense.

Information is revealed to the audience through the characters experience for example in the beginning we see the action taking place, then the protagonist help us find out why it happened and what they are going to do to stop it. with the use of props and evidence found we see at the same time as the characters what had been taken place.

Theme – In this thriller the hero must uncover a series of enigmas to establish the truth. There are many obstacles that try and stop him from reviling the truth but he is able to overcome them.

Evaluation

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Ways in which our thriller provides generic conventions are through the use of components such as mise-en-scene and cinematography elements. The antagonist of our product is identified to the audience in order for them to understand the concept of the thriller and his role in the film as well as being able to form their own opinion of him. As we only had a two minute time frame, one of the most important tasks was to establish the roles of the main characters. We accomplished the representation of the antagonist, the mystery man (David) by the use shots as he is viewed through an over the shoulder shot capturing the back of him as Jessica the victim runs away. These shots instantly reveal that he is the stereotypical male antagonist being the one to chase after a defenceless young girl.

The use of conventions display an action thriller sub-genre, with the use of mise en scene elements, for example, the choice of location being a long street leading to a house, suggest the film might feature a chase between the antagonist and victim. This suggests that it’s an action thriller. In our group, our intention was to build suspense by creating enigmas as to who the antagonist might be and what happens to the woman that is meant to help Jessica and final what happens to the victim. We first decided to have Melinda and David entering the house together so that Jessica realises Melinda isn't who she thinks she is, but later we decided to have a more of a dramatic effect which we will have Jessica seeming abandoned. This will have more of an affects on the audience it builds up a lot of questions in there mind which makes them want to watch more.

The use of Todorov theory helped us plan the outline of our film, as it helped us understand what conventions and aspects made a thriller what it is. With the used of this theory we were able to produce our sequence efficiently.

1. The fictional environment begins with a state of equilibrium (everything is as it should be), this was used as Melinda helped Jessica into her house and offered to cater to her.

2. It then suffers some disruption (disequilibrium), as Melinda takes to long to get back Jessica goes into the kitchen to look for her and finds the opposite of what she accepted.

3. New equilibrium is produced at the end of the narrative, this happens as Jessica runs out of the house but then is disjointed again as she is grabbed.

The first image is of the character Melinda; I chose this image as it shows how her being introduced into the scene, from this image the audience can see what characteristics she possesses. As she is cleaning the window she is conveyed as tidy, well kept. From the view of her being seen as such a person we expect her to be a nice friendly person, which later on in the scene we see her help out Jessica. She therefore takes on the role as the protagonist which in a thriller is vital to have.

The Second shot I have chosen is of Jessica running down the street. With the use of this screen grab we are able to establish the location of the scene taking place and realises that it supports the typical convention of a thriller as it is a realistic situation in a realistic location. This makes it easier for the audience as they are able to relate to the film because of how realistic it is.

The third screen shot I have chosen is of a cordless phone, which was one of the main props used.We took the batteries out of the phone which we did to plant in the audiences mind a mystery of to who might have taken the batteries out and why they are missing.

The fourth screen grab is of our title "Unsuspected". This at the end of our opening sequence, as it shows that the scenes that happened before that are just a preview of what is about to happened. The use of the colours black and red are used to represent the intensity in the thriller. The Screen grab of the title contrasts with our thriller genre as because it creates as the title itself creates enigmas as to what it is that is so unsuspected and also the front and colours that are used.

An establishing shot is used in the fifth screen shot as Jessica is knocking on Melinda’s door. A range of shots are used at the door scene between Melinda and Jessica which shows the audience both sides to the conversation. The use of this shot doesn't particularly show typical conventions of a thriller but it helps to convey what is happening in the scene.

In the sixth image a point of view shot is established as Jessica notices the doors being open. The use of this shot raises enigmas, the use of this convention builds suspense to how the doors managed to be open as before she left the room the doors were closed.

An over the shoulder shot is used in the last screen grab showing the victim running away from the antagonist. The use of this shot helps me as the director to convey a typical thriller convention of a chase between the antagonist and victim.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents particular social groups such as a younger generation as our characters is from the age of 16-23 so are product will be able to relate to them more. Being of male and female gender, preferably British. Our production is mainly aimed at people in the social group of B-E, our production will appeal to people in these social groups as the characters in our also in film are from the same social economic groups so they will be able to relate to them. From our opening sequence we can see that the middle class will do anything to get money even to kidnap a child and hold for ransom. It represents the middle class as eager and roofless, as Melinda and David’s plan could ruin their lives if it doesn’t go to plan. It also represents an upper class girl as being venerable and naïve, as she immediately puts her trust in Melinda which leads her into more danger.



Similarities between Melinda and Jezzie from ‘along came a spider’

Melinda like Jezzie from ‘Along came a spider’ plays the role of an innocent, sincerer person helping out a young victim. In ‘Unsuspected’ Jessica puts her trust in Melinda as she goes to her for help. The same sort of thing also happens in ‘Along came a spider’ as Megan puts her trust in Jezzie. Both characters in the beginning appear to be opposite to what they really are with we find out later on in the film. Both characters are devious and conniving. They are both after money and will go to any extend to get what they want

Differences between Melinda and Jezzie

Jezzie is a Secret Service agent that was meant to look after Megan, well as Melinda was just a Good Samaritan who took in Jessica. Towards the end of ‘Along came a spider’ we realises Jezzie isn’t what we think she is and with ‘Unsuspected’ from the moment the rest of the film continues we see Melinda’s true colours. Jezzie is the main kidnapped in this film whereas Melinda is only an accomplice. Jezzie works side by side with the protagonist whereas it is clear to the protagonist in ‘unsuspected that Melinda in is on the kidnapping as well. Melinda is a black British female whereas Jezzie is Caucasian American female. Jezzie kills her partner in crime whereas Melinda and David face their consequences together. Melinda is around her early twenties and Jezzie looks in her late twenties early thirties. Jezzie wants Megan dead whereas Melinda only wanted to use Jessica for money and then return her back.

Evaluation Question 3

4) Who would be the audience of your media production?

Having the role of the director meant that I had to make sure that we targeted the right audience, in order for our film to be successful. As I have researched into the British board of film classification website http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ it has helped me decide what age group would be best for our product, by looking at each criteria I have concluded that 15+ would be a best suited audience. Also the help of our questionnaires being distributed helped to decide what age category for product should be targeted. From the results shown we are able to establish that our thriller appeals to more females than males as more than half of our audience was female, are audience is from the age of 15 and above but mostly around 15-18. Under the criteria of a 15 it states that ‘Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable’ throughout the rest of our product I believe our film achieves what is required for a 15.

This is Reiss Ramsey; he is 17 years of age and lives in the Dagenham.
He listens to a variety of different music genres such as pop, indie music, R&B and a few rap tunes. Reiss occasionally dresses in simple clothing, with jeans and a top. He shops in places such as top man, River Island, H&M, JD sports, foot locker etc. on a week day he usually watches the following TV programmes: glee, on tree hill, scrubs, family guy etc. I think our product will appeal to Reiss as from the choice of music he likes we can see he is open to watch different types of thrillers and our film like many of the programmes he watches the characters are around the same age and similar profiles so he will be able to adapt to our characters.

This is Marian Hassan, She is 18 years of age and lives in Dagenham.
She listens to a few music genres such as R&B, rap and pop. Marian likes to take care of her image and occasionally dresses in trendy clothing. She shops in places like H&M and River Island, urban outfitters, New Look, and Topshop. She enjoys TV programmes such as desperate housewives, Hollyoaks, Eastenders, 90201, America's Next Top Model, gossip girl. I think our film would appeal to Marian as she like Reiss can relate in some way to the film, she is also around the same age as Jessica the victim so our film will be appealing to her. The fact that she watches Eastender and Hollyoaks shows how it can appeal with the drama and action taking place.

6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
During the process of our media product, I was assigned as the director. Within the editing suit we assisted the editor as he used technologies such as Final Cut Pro, we were able to improve the shots that we had filmed by using the software and we were able to portray conventions of thriller and going against typical thriller conventions.

In the filming process we encountered some difficulty which was a benefit on our behalf as we learnt from the mistakes we made, which gave a variety of shots to choose from in the editing suit. We first started by filming our preliminary task, this proved to be more difficult than expected because we had difficulties setting up the tripod and keeping it steady. Another problem we didn’t realise is that our group had recorded a preliminary task which we then discovered had broken the 180degree rule. Which meant we had to film all over again we did our preliminary task about three times before we got it right.

Other technologies that we used were blogger, youtube, photoshop, scribd, bubbl.us, cloud, yahoo, facebook, these were all were vital for the creation of our product for example blogger was useful to us as we were able to upload our progression, research and final product on it, i have learnt ow to upload data, change information, join blogs together and various other things just from using this software.

With the use of youtube i have learnt how to upload videos, embed them unto other sites this was very useful to us as it allowed a wider range of audience.

Photoshop was a very useful piece of technology as it allowed me to change images to suit me by cropping them, contrasting and the colour of the images.

Scribd was a software that i had used many times it basically made the work i do look up to a good standard as it is well presented.

I used bubbl.us for the brainstorm of our product it was very useful to me as it was a sufficient way of doing a mind map of our initial ideas and how they had evolved from then on.

Yahoo helped as with most things we need an email address to be able to sign up for various software's such as blogger,scribd, sound cloud etc.

The use of facebook made it easier for us to target our audience as it is a social networking site, i was able to link our blog to facebook so our audience can be able to access it and view our product.

7) looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Extreme close up

The use of an extreme close up connotes to the audience the important of the object, for example in jessica case her facial expression is important here as we see from this her desperation for melinda to hurry up and get her help.

Match on action

Match on action is a cut from one shot to another that matches the first shot, we used this in our product from the moment Melinda closes her front door to when Jessica closes the living room door to show a process of continuity.

Shot reverse shot

shot reverse shot happens when a character looks at one subject to another and then from the subject to the character, in our case we used a shot reverse shot as Melinda and Jessica are conversing looking from Jessica side to Melinda.

Establishing shot

An establishing shot is usual used at the beginning or end of a scene to establish a setting, we used this in our opening to establish Jessica exit.

Point of view

Point of view shot is used to see the point of view of a subject, we used it in our product it see the point of view of Jessica as she is searching for help.

Medium shot

A medium shot shows us the important things within a frame, in our preliminary we used a medium shot to show the conversation between two people.

Close up

Close up are used to show detail of something within a frame, within our preliminary we used a close up to show the detail of the subject typing on the keyboard.