Truthful Lies
Truthful Lies is a Drama Thriller with the conventions of revenge killings/murder. It was vital to use such typical elements such as is common with the genre, so as to interest the all ready existing audience for films of this particular genre. The difference between our piece and other existing products is that instead of the usual main characters (killer in particular) being adults aged 20 to middle age we used teenagers for both the victims and killer. This is likely to prove successful into attracting a larger audience for our target age range, teenagers.
The social groups represented in our film are teenagers, they are portrayed by the victims wearing normal everyday clothing/appearances bar the killer. The killer however is not wearing everyday clothing, he is portrayed wearing dark clothing and a gasmask to conceal any features/humanity, this was done to create a dark aura about the killer making him look almost inhuman. This challenges the normal media representation of teenagers as hooligans (‘yobs’ or ‘hoodies’) and offers an alternative darker, even more sinister view of them, rather than the random gang stabbing, the killer is shown acting out a cold blooded ‘execution’ of his victims.
Our film is a low budget British movie which is most likely to be funded/produced by British companies such as the UK Film Council, or Film 4, who have made similar products such as “Dead Men’s Shoes”. These low budget British dramas are typical of such companies therefore for more likely to be produced by them than big Hollywood companies such as Paramount or Universal Studios.
Our media product is aimed at British teenagers between 16-25. This is a good target audience due to 16-25 year olds being the most common cinema goers within the UK, the reason that our product is targeted at a British audience and not an American or international audience is that low budget films such as these don’t always appeal to a wider audience, social realism films tend to appeal mainly to British working class viewers who opt for realistic gritty films, rather than Hollywood’s over the top glamour films. However this said Thrillers with conventions such as ours do appeal to nations such as the US, therefore though not directly aimed at a US audience, there is still a slight chance that American viewers may be interested in the product. We created feedback sheets, and asked our class to fill them in after viewing our finished product, all of the feedback we got back said that they would watch the rest of our film if created to find out the answer to enigmas we had established, such as who the killer was, how did the main character survive and why was the killer after them in the first place?. This evidence proves that we were successful in appealing to our target audience.
We attracted/addressed our audience by offering them a non-linear opening sequence that instantly showed the viewers what the film was about, whilst setting up enigmas for later on, such as who the killer is, why is he after the victims and how the main character managed to survive. We started the scene in a graveyard, where the main character is visiting a grave of one of the victims, we then added numerous flashbacks to the garage when and where the killings took place by using editing effects such as cutting and black and white filters. This showed the audience the main theme throughout the film whilst keeping them guessing at certain enigmas and at the same time creating a sense of distortion and confusion with no real sense of time, this chaotic editing matched the chaotic events unfolding through the flashback scenes (garage killings) creating tension, suspense and even possible fear for the audience (One persons’ feedback even suggested the genre was horror due to this). We built tension through out the opening sequence by the use of non-diegetic slow, dark and dramatic music mixed with black and white effects over the flashbacks, and fast paced editing. We also filmed the killer mainly in low angle shots, to make him look dominant and powerful (also involved in making the killer feel powerful/dominant was the fact that he was the only male in the scene), props and costume also helped make the killer seem menacing/powerful, the use of a gasmask to hide all features and dark clothing also helped. The victims however were filmed in high angle shots making them look weak and helpless, wearing normal everyday clothes, we also used close ups to emphasise their emotions; fear and confusion.
Technologies, mainly the computers have helped during this project. We researched the internet to find examples of existing similar media products (such as Dead Men’s Shoes) and posted our progress on sites such as blogger.com, helping us to keep track of our own progress and eventually upload our preliminary task and our finished product. The Apple Macs have also proved useful when it came to editing, I already had a good understanding of how to edit films on I-Movie (due to High School) so editing proved to be easy and straight forward in my case, using effects such as fades, cuts, black and white filters and superimposed text. The digital camera also proved as a vital asset, with the ability to quickly and simply firewire our tapes onto the Macs for easy editing.
In comparison to the preliminary task, this final piece proved superior in many ways, through the making of this product we have learnt more and more about various cinematography techniques, editing techniques and further establishing characters/scenarios.
Personally I believe that our finished opening sequence was a success. We managed to attract the attention of our target audience and generally create an entertaining piece of film. However some weaknesses are that within the flashback scenes, I think that the victim’s voices (generic struggling noises) are too loud and overwhelm the slow, dark music, and personally seem to compromise the tense and distorted atmosphere. On the other hand I believe that the editing and general cinematography are the products main strengths, the low key lighting and various low/high angle shots really help to create a sense of tension and a dark atmosphere.
Truthful Lies is a Drama Thriller with the conventions of revenge killings/murder. It was vital to use such typical elements such as is common with the genre, so as to interest the all ready existing audience for films of this particular genre. The difference between our piece and other existing products is that instead of the usual main characters (killer in particular) being adults aged 20 to middle age we used teenagers for both the victims and killer. This is likely to prove successful into attracting a larger audience for our target age range, teenagers.
The social groups represented in our film are teenagers, they are portrayed by the victims wearing normal everyday clothing/appearances bar the killer. The killer however is not wearing everyday clothing, he is portrayed wearing dark clothing and a gasmask to conceal any features/humanity, this was done to create a dark aura about the killer making him look almost inhuman. This challenges the normal media representation of teenagers as hooligans (‘yobs’ or ‘hoodies’) and offers an alternative darker, even more sinister view of them, rather than the random gang stabbing, the killer is shown acting out a cold blooded ‘execution’ of his victims.
Our film is a low budget British movie which is most likely to be funded/produced by British companies such as the UK Film Council, or Film 4, who have made similar products such as “Dead Men’s Shoes”. These low budget British dramas are typical of such companies therefore for more likely to be produced by them than big Hollywood companies such as Paramount or Universal Studios.
Our media product is aimed at British teenagers between 16-25. This is a good target audience due to 16-25 year olds being the most common cinema goers within the UK, the reason that our product is targeted at a British audience and not an American or international audience is that low budget films such as these don’t always appeal to a wider audience, social realism films tend to appeal mainly to British working class viewers who opt for realistic gritty films, rather than Hollywood’s over the top glamour films. However this said Thrillers with conventions such as ours do appeal to nations such as the US, therefore though not directly aimed at a US audience, there is still a slight chance that American viewers may be interested in the product. We created feedback sheets, and asked our class to fill them in after viewing our finished product, all of the feedback we got back said that they would watch the rest of our film if created to find out the answer to enigmas we had established, such as who the killer was, how did the main character survive and why was the killer after them in the first place?. This evidence proves that we were successful in appealing to our target audience.
We attracted/addressed our audience by offering them a non-linear opening sequence that instantly showed the viewers what the film was about, whilst setting up enigmas for later on, such as who the killer is, why is he after the victims and how the main character managed to survive. We started the scene in a graveyard, where the main character is visiting a grave of one of the victims, we then added numerous flashbacks to the garage when and where the killings took place by using editing effects such as cutting and black and white filters. This showed the audience the main theme throughout the film whilst keeping them guessing at certain enigmas and at the same time creating a sense of distortion and confusion with no real sense of time, this chaotic editing matched the chaotic events unfolding through the flashback scenes (garage killings) creating tension, suspense and even possible fear for the audience (One persons’ feedback even suggested the genre was horror due to this). We built tension through out the opening sequence by the use of non-diegetic slow, dark and dramatic music mixed with black and white effects over the flashbacks, and fast paced editing. We also filmed the killer mainly in low angle shots, to make him look dominant and powerful (also involved in making the killer feel powerful/dominant was the fact that he was the only male in the scene), props and costume also helped make the killer seem menacing/powerful, the use of a gasmask to hide all features and dark clothing also helped. The victims however were filmed in high angle shots making them look weak and helpless, wearing normal everyday clothes, we also used close ups to emphasise their emotions; fear and confusion.
Technologies, mainly the computers have helped during this project. We researched the internet to find examples of existing similar media products (such as Dead Men’s Shoes) and posted our progress on sites such as blogger.com, helping us to keep track of our own progress and eventually upload our preliminary task and our finished product. The Apple Macs have also proved useful when it came to editing, I already had a good understanding of how to edit films on I-Movie (due to High School) so editing proved to be easy and straight forward in my case, using effects such as fades, cuts, black and white filters and superimposed text. The digital camera also proved as a vital asset, with the ability to quickly and simply firewire our tapes onto the Macs for easy editing.
In comparison to the preliminary task, this final piece proved superior in many ways, through the making of this product we have learnt more and more about various cinematography techniques, editing techniques and further establishing characters/scenarios.
Personally I believe that our finished opening sequence was a success. We managed to attract the attention of our target audience and generally create an entertaining piece of film. However some weaknesses are that within the flashback scenes, I think that the victim’s voices (generic struggling noises) are too loud and overwhelm the slow, dark music, and personally seem to compromise the tense and distorted atmosphere. On the other hand I believe that the editing and general cinematography are the products main strengths, the low key lighting and various low/high angle shots really help to create a sense of tension and a dark atmosphere.
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