Final Product: Mind Clock

Monaire Pillay Q7-Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to

From our preliminary task, we were able to learn about framing and shot compositions we were also able to learn about how to shoot a shot reverse shot, and how to use 180 degree rule to show a relationship between characters. We also learnt that team work, time management and planning is vital in order to achieve a good final opening. Inspiration from other similar films is also helpful when making your final opening so you can have an idea of different shots and convention you can put in your final opening.

   In the preliminary task we were able to learn about continuity and 
how to choose the correct shots in order to make the actions seem natural.

We  applied  continuity to our thriller opening by making the music match the shot seconds and by using the shots of the numbers first then introducing the character.

In this shot we were able to show how necessary it is to get the perfect framing and lighting of the shot. In our preliminary task the lighting was bad and the shot was tilted making the shot look not well thought through and very unprofessional

 however in our extreme close-up we thought about what to focus on and if we had enough lighting ext. 

Monaire Pillay Q6-What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Blogger –when using blogger i learnt how to arrange different posts and to utalise a blog sufficiently, I learnt that by sharing a blog you could communicate with one another and gain idea for different shots though looking at what other thrillers people had looked at.

Macs, imovie and Photoshop – I learnt how to function Macs, shortcut buttons, how to edit clips using imove and how create newspaper headline on Photoshop. I was able to improve my editing skills and learnt how to place images over clips thus being better as a whole at using imove.

Internet websites- we used internet websites such as dafont to find our text and freesound to find our music and also when we were not able to do something looked up tutorials or instructions on the way then learning how to used imove functions more effectively

Hd handheld camera- we learnt how to do close-ups without our shots becoming overly pixelated and learnt how to upload our footage and to get the shots the way we wanted using the tripod and tracks to assist us in filming our shots.

Monaire Pillay Q5-How did you attract/address your audience?

Monaire Pillay Q4-Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our film would be perfect for this target audience because the main character is a white teenaged school girl meaning that the target audience can relate to the character, thus making the opening more thrilling for them because this means that they can relate to the character, and feel empathy. Because our film is also a cross between independent and mainstream the means that we can target our target audience and still encourage other to show interest.

Monaire Pillay Q3-What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

In January 2012, Lionsgate announced it was acquiring Summit Entertainment, producers of the Twilight Saga films, for $412.5 million. Therefore showing there increasing popularity and showing that they could make our film popular and achieve success, because our film used some special effects and uses a twist in the story line we are able to compare our film to the films that Lionsgate have previously produced.although we accommodate themes for a mainstream audience by doing such things as making our main character relate to our target audience however by adding the twist in the storyline of the charters obsession with time this shows aspects of an indie genre thus making our story seem more independent and making Lionsgate the perfect choice for our film because they accommodate for both types of films.













The Hunger Games grossed $152.5 million, making it Lionsgate's highest grossing film after just three day

Monaire Pillay Q2-How does your media product represent particular social groups?

question 2 on Prezi

Monaire Pillay Q1-In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

                
     
Title of the film
For the title of our film we chose a white title that contrast against a black background in order to go with our colour theme and to make the title stand out making the flashing title seem as bright as the light on a digital clock, we also wanted to highlight an ambiguous character showing that in the film she could potentially be either good or bad. We also chose the name ‘mind clock’ as it directly hints to the narrative that the story is about a girl who is obsessed with time as we wanted our film to be a psychological thriller we wanted aspects of the film to be symbolic to this thus making our film opening seem stereotypical in order to appeal to our audience and to convey the genre. Through using black against white we directly link to the theme of good vs evil as this is a key theme used in thrillers and we took this on because we felt it fit in with our own.


Setting/location
We wished to use a classroom setting as our character was a school girl, and we felt it was appropriate to take advantage of our school environment Then we went on to shoot  in several different locations in order to get the lighting as we desired we settled on this particular classroom as it was naturally quite dark which is a generic convention for thrillers and used natural light to highlight the character.we manipulated the lighting as used in thrillers to show the potential for the character to show a darker side and to convey the subversion of innocents in a symbolic way which is a key theme of thrillers.we shadows around the keys in order to recreate the mise-en-scene used in thrillers and because this is a generic conventions used in thrillers. we also manipulate shadow throughout our opening.


Costume and props
For costumes and props we chose to use things around school such as the clock, numbers on the keyboard and we created a timetable, thus making the film have a colour theme of black and white, we also considered this when choosing our actress's attire thus reflecting our characters instability and need for control through her costume. We also show the connections with time through the numbers on the keyboard, the clock and the timetable thus hinting to the narrative through symbolic props.


Camera work and editing
We wanted to create a closeness with our character’s instability and the audience thus being why we decide to use mostly a lot of close-ups, in order to make it seem personal and for some shots even edited them to make the shots more of an extreme close-up, we used close-ups of the numbers in our shots also to show their significance. through showing our characters instability we convey a typical characteristics of a thriller and through this we wanted the character to be thrilled because of the similarity to our target audience so they are able to feel empathy and thus being thrilled by her instability. we show this character becoming more and more anxious through cross-cutting between shots of anxious behaviour and number, showing that they have an connection and showing a subversion of innocents which is a generic convention and an be compared to films like Brian de Palmas Carrie

We also used a series of different shots such as a tilt and tracking although we found difficulty with the tracking each of us made an attempt to help and managed to get the desired shot. When editing ,we also found overlaying the images and lowering the opacity had a great effect on showing what was going through our characters mind once again making the audience feel close to the character like in films such as Roman Polanski’s Repulsion and used a panning shot like Roman Polanski in order to do this.


Title font and styleAfter looking on Dafont for different fonts that could make a suitable choice for our opening we chose segmental as it was white against a black background and was in a digital text thus going perfectly with our openings theme, we looked at other types of font in order to see what our options where however we still all agreed with this segmental.


Story and how the opening sets it up
Because our thriller opening was more symbolic we used the props to show what problems occur in the future. by using one character the choosing to place shots of significant objects around her we show that this film would focus on this character personally and show the development of her instability, we attempted to stick to our storyboard the best we could to show this. therefore conveying that our character is unstable and has the potential to become a violent character thus showing aspects of a psychological thriller


Genre and how the opening suggests this
Thought the manipulation of shadow and light, the close-ups and editing two second into opening we are able to show the conventions of thrillers throughout work. Through the manipulation of shadow and light we show that we have taken into consideration the conventions of thrillers and there constant use of shadow and light to create an uneasy feel.

The close-ups shows the anxious behaviour of the character thus showing an innocent school girl as unstable making the audience feel uncomfortable and the two second shots show the build up of the character becoming unstable and as the subversion of innocents is a key theme in thrillers we have shown a good attempt a doing our own. adaptation of that theme. We also used a simple ticking which can be compared to Alfred Hitchcock and his use of diegetic sound to thrill an audience.


How are the characters introduced?
We chose only one character and decided to show her in a school environment shown to be under some kind of stress making the audience create a relationship with her and maybe even feel sympathy for her.

We begin with a tilt to show that she is the key character showing the timetable in the shot in order to show its significance to both the character and the narrative.


Special effects
Overlapping – we overlapped both clips and still images into our opening. For the still images we created our own news headlines then placed the over clips to show the connection by lowering the opacity. We also did the same with other clips as we felt that the clips looked two placid. By doing this we create an uneasy ghostly effect suggesting that time is always on the characters mind showing that is a key feature of the opening

One second clips – we did this with the titles in order to animate the clips and make them seem as if they were flashing, we also did the with snippets of other clips making the time even lower in order for the audience to only catch a glimpses of the clip, we also edited clips to be in time with the soundtrack.by doing this we build up our characters growing instability showing that time is a key feature and what causes this characters instability .

Conor Sturgess - Q1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Environment and costume.
We initially never intended making our movie seem seem so plain, for instance, the amount of black and white we have used (Clothes, tables,chairs and clocks). But after we uploaded a few clips onto our macs we noticed that the colours gave a strong indication of how she is feeling and her thoughts, so we decided to proceed with the majority of the film having a black and white dominance. These two contrasting colours tend to be used effectively in many thriller films.

Title Font
We all researched a certain of type font which we wanted to have in our opening scene. We ended up finding the font named ‘Segmental’ which we felt gave the correct narrative hint to our opening scene as its the same type of font you will see on a digital alarm clock with the issue of time being the main priority of our film.

Character
We start off by not showing any characters to the audience but instead numbers. Even though you will only see our main character for a few seconds between each clip, this reminds the audience that she is being haunted and disturbed by time.

Narrative
The narrative is strongly hinted in our opening scene. For instance the way the word ‘time’ keeps popping up as well as the number digits, showing she has no escape from time itself. We have also placed life threatening accident sounds onto news headlines and then number digits following straight after, helping the audience to try and link the two puzzles together and realise that they are all caused by linear but irreversible time.


Sound
We chose not to place any music onto our opening scene, as we believed it gave the impression of loneliness to our audience. However, we did in fact insert the sound of a clock ticking. The ticking is not only very important for the narrative, but also is meant to imply her sanity steadily slipping away.


However, what really helped us was the Prezi we each individually created to help with our opening scene. We made a list of vital things to remember when filming which are Mise-En-Scene, Editing, Camera and Sound and then we made a brainstorm under the headings to help. Numerous amount of times I would go back to my prezi and look again at my notes to see what our group could add onto our opening scene.

Thriller Genre on Prezi

Conor Sturgess - Q3 What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

We ended up choosing the independent company Lionsgate to distribute our film. Even though through our audience research we found out that at least 60% would rather watch a mainstream movie to an independent, we still chose to stick with lionsgate.  
However, I do believe our film does fit into the mainstream as well as independent. This is due to our low production costs we would face later on and our narrative seems like the typical mainstream movie.

Lionsgate is known globally for distributing mainstream movies, but yet having independent studios at the same time. Some famous mainstream movies Lionsgate has distributed are American Psycho and Saw 2.  We believed our film fitted into this system perfectly as we still have some aspects of being mainstream as well as independent. 

Conor Sturgess - Q2 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We decided to represent young teenagers in our movie as our audience research told us that the majority were of ages 16-18. The serious perspective is reflected in our opening where all the viewer will see is a teenaged girl looking depressed and very lonely seeing the world in a distorted and distrubing way through her eyes. This isn't exactly a positive view on young social groups, but thats what had been intended from our storyboard.

• Because of our characters appearance  you  immediately recognize through her facial features and clothing that she is a school student looking depressed and anxious.

As you can see in the image, she is wearing a white t-shirt and a black cardigan, which implies a school uniform and she is inside a school classroom, showing she is a student. We wanted our audience to recognize  the mise-en-scene and to be automatically intuned to the character’s background narrative. 

conor Sturgess - Q4 Who would be the audience for your media product?

To find  our target audience  we created a questionnaire which we then decided to hand out to students and teachers around our school asking them various question about films.

QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS on Prezi

Conor Sturgess - Q6 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Pre Production

Google Blogger
Google Blogger was a new experience to me, it even took a while to get used to. I had never before used a blog for school work or my social life. However, now I feel I can use a blog effectively as I have learned all the basic ways to operate a blog.

iPhone
We used my iPhone camera to take photographs of the environment we would be using. This was very useful as it allowed all of our group members to view and decide if the environment would be right for our opening scene since I was able to upload it immediately onto the blog.

During Production

Sony DV Camera
Our group used a Mini Sony DV Camera for all our filming, which is very light and small making it effective in tricky shots. However, we did have trouble at first trying to adjust the focus on close-ups, but eventually found out how to readjust the camera settings.

Internet / Mobile Phones
We all used our mobile phones and social network websites to stay in contact. Our group would arrange various times about when to meet and where using our mobile phones or facebook chat.

Post Production

iPhoto
We had to use iPhoto for creating still images of news headlines and then placing them onto our opening scene. This helped me understand the basic options inside iPhoto. However, I don’t feel as if I know a great knowledge of this software yet as I used it very rarely.

iMovie
We had to use Apple Macs when producing our opening scene. This was something I wasn’t so confident on as I had never once used a Mac for any sort of production work. However, due to our preliminary task I had to use these for editing and uploading footage. After a while I quickly got to understand the basics of how they operate and work. Even though I'm much more comfortable with the Windows format I would like to use a Mac for any production work. 

Conor Sturgess - Q5 How did you attract/address your audience?

• We chose not to place any popular, uplifting or any other type of music onto our clip in order to make it much more intense and disturbing. We wanted an audience who sought drama instead of humour.

• We used a few visual effects to attract our potential audience. For example, when the word ‘Time’ or images of her face keep flashing onto the screen

• We were looking for an audience who prefer more mainstream films and the same audience of ‘In Time

• We decided to make our film with a 15 rating. This would attract young teenagers as our film would be able to appeal to their lives.

• Because of our 15 age rating we can now include violence and strong language, helping us attract larger audiences.

Conor Sturgess Q7 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Editing

I feel that i've been able to extend the knowledge I gained from our first preliminary task. For instance, I learned many key skills while editing our preliminary film and I was able to use those skills in the production of our final opening scene. Editing was the skill I was most confident about after our preliminary exercise. We used a software named ‘Imovie’ and we were taught how to use various advanced editing techniques. Although there is much more I need to learn I feel I could solely complete an opening scene using the techniques I learnt from Imovie.

However, when editing our Preliminary task we had a slight problem. The continuity seemed very unrealistic as we started filming immediately after the word ‘Action’. This made it very difficult to edit clips and paste them into scenes as it all seemed way too jerky and a little bit fake. But we learnt from our mistake, and made sure that in our opening scene we wouldn't have the same problem as we left a 2-3 second gap after the word action.

Filming

Having used a wide range of different shots during the planning of our opening scene I felt that the possibilities of how you can shoot a scene were definitely opened up. For example, the tracking shot, Point of view (POV) and above the shoulder shot. It was always our intention to somehow place a tracking shot in our opening scene, but not in our preliminary task.

Therefore, we used our preliminary task to practise the point of view and above the shoulder shots. We used the ‘Point of view’ shot when our actress is opening the door but we ended up replacing it with a shot of her from behind walking in. The POV shot  made the continuity seem very unrealistic as it was nearly impossible to cut to a shot of them sitting down talking afterwards.

Rochelle Thomas - Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

PLANNING PROCESS:

When planning our opening, we constructed storyboards where we sketched up our shots and put an explaination of how many seconds the shots would be, what shots we where trying to interpret and the sound which in this case was ticking all throughout and lastly what the lighting would be like within our shots. Throughout the construction of our first storyboard drafting and final storyboard we made a range of changings to our shots and added the credits in our storyboard as well. Throughout the planning process I have learnt that it is important to plan and make changes during the construction of the product, as it allows us to make changes and keep things that we felt had worked. During the planning process I recognized the importance of ideas, all members of our group were able to interpret their own ideas on what they thought we should include in our opening. During our preliminary task we learnt the importance of planning, as opposed to changing ideas and re-drafting them, this allowed us to decide what were going to change and what we were going to keep. We realised that planning is useful and made the construction of our final product easier.

FILMING: During the filming of preliminary and the first weeks of filming for our final product we learnt the importance of location, we noticed that some of our shots where to dark causing problems with the shadowing we was trying to create. We had to change our location a few times however we learnt that setting is highly important when filming. During our preliminary we had to cover continuity through the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot-reverse-shot, we learnt that the continuity must be maintained throughout all of our shots for example if an action occurs in one shot, that action has to be followed into the next shot. We learned that it is important to interpret contiousness and a clear narrative action. However sometimes it is seen to be conventional to distrupt the action within a shot, as it adds suspense. In our preliminary we noticed that it is important that when interpreting shot-reverse-shot nothing that isn't meant to be in focus shouldn't be. After are preliminary task we found it much easier to work the camera and other equipment and we also found it easier to interpret continuity throughout.

EDITING: We learnt that all our shots had to be the same to express continuousness and a clear narrative for example we had to make sure that we didnt have some shots with fast paced editing and others with slow paced, we made sure that all the shots flowed well. We also made sure that the ticking was in sync with the cuts between each of the shots and that with the shots of the clock the ticking was in sync with the clock aswell. Overall I have learnt how important it is for our shots to be maintained.


This is a link to our preliminary task: http://1221group22012.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/preliminary-task.html

Rochelle Thomas - Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? on Prezi

Rochelle Thomas - Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

We aimed to attract our audience mainly through mise-en-scene, camerawork and editing. We used our results from our audience research to address our audience in as many ways as possible and make sure that our opening represented our target audience of young females. We also acknowledged things that our audience prefered for example our target audience prefer pyschological Thrillers, so we decided to create a pyschological Thriller and there prefered type of film is mainstream, we demonstrated conventions of a mainstream film through the narrative structure however our Thriller does fit into a independant film aswell because we had low production value.

1. The cuts of the numbers at the beginning of our opening give the audience a idea of what the plot of our Thriller is, the cuts build up suspense at the beginning which is conventional in Thrillers as a way of creating a enigmatic atmosphere. Overall the numbers give our target audience a insight into the complex plot behind the opening.

2. As our target audience are young females, we wanted it to be evident that we were trying to attract them so we chose a young female who is a student to be our protagonist, we wanted our audience to be able to relate to our character. We challenged the stereotypical gender conventions by choosing a female as our main character, most Thrillers tend to have men as there protagonist however we wanted to challenge this convention by choosing a female who can be presented as vulnerable and a vicitim at all times, adding suspense. We mainly used mise-en-scene (school books, school uniform) to address that our protagonist is young and is a student. Its obvious that are Thriller is set in a school, from the longshot of the classroom making our Thriller realistic and able to relate to. The longshot also helps to show that our protagonist is isolated not like your usual stereotypical teenager.

3. We used sounds and close-ups to make it obvious to our target audience that our film is a psychological Thriller, the close-ups of her ears, eyes, hands are purposely done to address to the audience that she is anxious, paranoid and on edge. The close-up of the ear demonstrates that she is a troubled character psychologically and that time leaves her distraught. The sirens suggests that the character has fears that are affecting her mind leaving her paranoid, her constant restless movements show that she is nervous and that the problems within her mind is the plot of the Thriller. Overall through camera and sound we made it evident to our target audience that we interpreted the sub-genre they prefered.

4. We used special effects during our editing and created news headlines on photoshop to include in our opening, as a way of representing the fears of our protagonist. We could only express that our character is troubled through body language, so we used the headlines to make it more obvious that she is troubled within her mind. We used the cut-a-way tool on imovie to make our headlines overlap our characters head, interpreting her thoughts. Again this will attract our audience as it will show we acknowledged there preferences of creating a psychological Thriller and our audience may be able to relate to the stress of meeting deadlines at school or college.

5. Unlike most Thrillers we didn't use a dramatic soundtrack instead we used a constant ticking sound throughout, as we found that a soundtrack wouldn't address the main concern in this film which is time. In order for our target audience to relate to the anxiousness of meeting deadlines, we had to interpret time within our sound.

6. The Thriller 'Se7en' by David Fincher, shares some similarities with our Thriller through the ways in which it attracts its target audience of males between the age of 18-29. The close ups of the mans movements during the opening suggest to us that the target audience of this Thriller enjoy films that involve hunting down someone or something, the whole opening consists of extreme close-ups however our opening gives us a sense of the personality of our protagonist. Similar to our Thriller, the actions of our protagonists are important as it helps us understand what the plot of our film is. David Fincher uses the close-ups to address the actions of his protagonist as a way of building up suspense to the opening similar to ours. He doesn't use a dominant soundtrack which is conventional in a Thriller, he decides to use a repeated sound that perhaps reflects on the plot of the film.

Rochelle Thomas - Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I personally feel that the best distributors for our Thriller would be 'Lionsgate' as we decided that our Thriller crosses between mainstream and independant and that a successful independant film company would be best fit because of this. From our audience research we learnt that our audience liked mainstream and independent films, our opening considers aspects of  mainstream and independant. We thought this institution should distribute our film because our Thriller doesn't have tremendous production value which is conventional in mainstream films e.g better financing enabling them to pay for expensive trained actors, wide releases and limited releases. Unlike us, mainstream films are able to pay for expensive equipment such as red epic digital camera's (3D cameras) excelling the quality of there film however we used mini dv digital cameras that caused us some problems during the production process as sometimes our shots where out of focus. On the other hand our Thriller also fits into mainstream due to the narrative which is seen to be conventional because it is surreal and complicated to understand. Most film institutions believe that marketing is one of most important factors within distribution most of these distributors tend to find that above the line promotion through the interent, billboards, newspapers, TV and articles allows them to make a bigger profit from the film for example the distributors of Superman returns 'Warner Bro's' said that despite having high production costs of 270million there ways of distribution allowed them to make a profit of 120million.

 'Lionsgate'  used synergy to develop there entertainment cooperation for example In January 2012, Lionsgate announced it was acquiring Summit Entertainment, producers of the Twilight Saga films, for $412.5 million.The two companies have planned on merging since 2008. Sources say that the entertainment cooperation is seen to be one of the most "successful independant film and TV distribution company in North America". I believe that our biggest selling point will come from the our shots creating a enigmatic atmosphere drawing our target audience in, making them want to know what's going to happen next. Although they are a independant film company there huge success with there films suggests that there distribution techniques are commendable as they are able to distribute there films globally.

Rochelle Thomas - Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Before deciding how we would appeal to our audience, we completed our audience research task using self-completion questionnaires enabling us to gather ideas on what would appeal to our particular audience and how we would construct this. Our consumer which are students between the age of 16-18 would watch our film as after gathering our results we made sure that we acknowledged what they preferred and what would draw there attention.

TARGET AUDIENCE OF MY PRODUCT on Prezi

Rochelle Thomas - Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our opening we represented three common social groups these are students, females and young people. There are a range of technical areas that help to acknowledge the stereotypes within these social groups.

How does your media product represent particular social group? on Prezi

Rochelle Thomas - Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Camerawork: Our initial idea for our opening was to create a psychological Thriller, which involves major focus on the characters particularly the protaganists mind so we decided to use a variety of close- ups and extreme-close ups to emphasize this. In our storyboard we planned to use a range of close-ups and long-shots, however we changed this further into the production process as we had too many shots revealing the narrative of our film. Once we changed this and had less shots, we noticed that our shots became more concealed adding engima and suspense to our opening. The use of close-ups make the shots more intimate helping to indicate that there are thoughts and fears within the protaganists mind creating a eerie atmosphere, however the audience are not revealed to what the reasons are for this leaving them questioning what's to come. This is conventional within this genre as it draws the audience, it creates a build up until the camera cuts adding suspense. The continuety of the shots and the immediate transitions are conventional as it doesn't specify what the main focus should be to the audience leaving them questioning. The slow tracking shot used of our character at the desk makes the audience feel like a voyeur which is conventional of this genre as it allows the audience to identify with the character. The extreme close-ups of our character's facial features creates that idea of the audience visualising her mind this is a typical Thriller convention as it uses the technique cinematography to create tension.

Sound: As a group we decided that our sound should express the characters conflict with time, so we chose to have ticking throughout each of the cuts in our shots acknowledging the importance of time to the protagonist. Although the ticking didn't come from the clock we was tracking from we made sure the ticking was in sync with the ticking of the clock. The dynamics within our sound increases which is conventional in Thrillers as it  emphasises the complexity of the Thriller. However our opening challenges sound as it doesn't use the conventional non-diegetic dramatic soundtrack that you hear in most Thrillers to create a emotionally intense atmosphere engaging the audience. Most Thrillers use a soundtrack that is intially scary, however the ticking used in our opening doesn't demonstrate terror but instead links in well with the narrative of our Thriller similar to 'Se7en'. We also added sirens to amplify the fears and anxiety she is feeling bringing across a sense of terror which is conventionally important to express within Thrillers. From my product research I learnt that it is conventional for the sound to link with the mise-en-scene, for example if the protagonist is wearing red which symbolises danger, the soundtrack is likely to be a crescendo implying a build up. We also had interuptions in our ticking which is conventional as it gives the audience a hint on the narrative, suggesting that our protagonist has some sort of conflict. 

Mise-en-scene/Props: Our protagonist is a student, so we decided as a group that she should be dressed smartly to show that she is within school grounds. She is dressed in black and white, black symbolising mysteriousness and solemnity and the white connotating purity,innocence and youth. The black almost connotates her fears and conflict with time, however both the black and white represent the theme of good vs evil. The conflict between good vs evil is seen to be a common human condition that acknowledges the inner struggles that the character may have. Both colours together create a crepuscular atmosphere adding to the mysteriousness of the characters inner thoughts. We used iconography which is conventional in Thrillers, we symbolised this through the different clocks we showed within our opening implying the significance of time. However we did  challenge real media products as most Thrillers just use props to create suspense to the narrative however we used our props to stress that time is a important theme within our narrative. We used the Iphone 4, classroom clocks and keyboard numbers to express the struggle she has with time, the different forms of time that cut between each of our shots created suspense and almost makes the audience feel her conflict. 

Title/Font: When deciding what our font would be, we chose not to use a predicatable Thriller font. When researching fonts, we used 'da font' to find one that would express time. We wanted to have a opening that was similar to the thriller 'Se7en' by David Fincher. The lack of coherance within this opening helps to reflect on the characters mind. We used the font 'Segmental' which is a font that looks like a digital clock, we thought this was good as it reflected on time which is the most significant theme in our Thriller. The font is white on a black background again suggesting the idea of good vs evil, as opposed to her inner thoughts causing corruption to her innocent mind. We named our Thriller 'Mind Clock' allowing the audience to connotate that our psycological Thriller is going to reflect on the time,and the protagonists mind. We followed a conventional approach to the colour of our font,most Thrillers tend to use white on black to address that some form of conflict is going to happen within the film. From my product research we had identified that it is conventional for the title font and colour to reflect on the Thriller it self, for example a red font would symbolise that violence is centeral in this Thriller. The white on black title is significant in this particular genre. However we challenged conventions, as our font doesn't reflect on Thrillers overall.

Editing And Effects: During our editing process we started to put the shots together, add effects and cut bits out to improve our opening. We used fast- paced editing to build up on the atmosphere, creating tension. Our intention from the fast- paced editing was to give the audience a insight into the anxiety the character is feeling. This is conventional as it makes the opening gripping and satisfies the audience's pleasures as it leaves the audience at the edge of their seats. We used cutting to engage our audience in the sense of movement from one aspect of the opening e.g our protagonist doing her work, to her become fearful of her thoughts. We reversed the chronology of our opening at the end using fast-paced editing to create a thrill. We used photoshop to add in our news headlines, in effect we wanted to address the fears that she may be having this contrasted well with the sirens in the background connotating the chaos within her mind. We used the cutaway tool in Imovie to have our shots of our protagonist overlapped with the news headlines to suggest that there is issues within her mind making her anxious. We used conventions for example the fast-paced editing which is common in Thrillers as a way of creating suspense and making the protagonist seem vulnerable however we challenged conventions through using different effects rather than just using transitions in our opening.

Characters And Setting: Our location was in a school, in order to show that are character is isolated we took a long-shot of her in the centre of the classroom with unaccompanied seats. A isolated setting is conventional in many Thrillers as it makes the audience wary of what could happen creating tension.  The location enables our target audience to relate to this setting. Our protagonist is supposed to look vulnerable and above suspicion, which is conventional as it makes the audience concious that our protagonist is open for danger at any time engaging the audience, the close ups emphasize this acknowledging her fearful facial expressions. Her facial expression suggest that she is the victimin our Thriller. The location is conventional as most Thrillers that involve teenagers are commonly set within school grounds, on the other hand our choice of character is conventional as the victims within Thrillers are often young. By choosing a young character it allows the audience to gain a sense of fear for her which is conventional as it links to the audience's pleasure, my product research showed me that you will often see a innocent female character and a evil, mysterious and disturbed character conventionally a male.