Issues we faced when filming our Thriller Opening

Over the past couple of weeks we have been filming our Thriller Opening for our main task and have been challenged with various different issues and problems which has made my group and I be proactive and productive to ensure that it does not put us at a disadvantage to get our Thriller completed for the deadline that is set for Friday 6th of March.

Technology: One of the problems we have faced when it has come to meeting up with my group and filming our Thriller is the struggle with technology. We were using a camera that did not pick up the dialogue of the characters in our opening because we did not realise that we would need an additional microphone to enhance the sounds that were being made.

Actors and Characters: This is one of the biggest issues that my group and I have had to deal with when filming our Thriller. After a lot negotiation and changes we have finally decided on the two mains actors for the finished product. On our first attempt of filming and watching it back to edit, we found that it did not work and that our grade would be effected by how poorly it turned out so we had to start again from scratch and this is when we decided to bring one of our friends in to help out and be one of the actors and change aspects of the Thriller.

We had an overall idea for our Thriller, as our pitch states, but when it came to filming we found that it would be a lot more difficult to create the product that we wanted so instead we kept our initial plan in mind and just tweaked little parts of it so it was more achievable for us.

So far, filming has been going well and I would like to say that we are at a good pace with our post-production too. I hope we can make it to deadline day with a finished product that is a promising item to get a good grade for our AS Media course.

Regional Identities - Stereotypes

Marketing and Promotion of Films

It takes millions of pounds/dollars in order to make a film, the studio then spends millions more on promoting the new film to audience through the use of adverts and posters. Marketing a large film is a very expensive job, more commonly when a film has a limited shelf life. Many movies have to be popular on their opening day and weekend, otherwise they tend to be forgotten more easily and the studios lose millions that they invested into the movie.

Most popular and blockbuster films already have an audience waiting to watch the film. Studios can afford to use a large budget for the film because they already know that people to are eager to go and see it - this is often caused by media texts that already have an audience. This is why remakes and sequels are so popular because these types of films already have a large fan base. Many studios put out films that fail, in terms of the amount of money they earn from an audience, and studios lose out on a huge profits that they usually make from other popular films they have brought out previously.

Many different films have various different shelf lives. This means that some films will be shown on cinema screens for 6 months or only a few weeks. The marketing of the film has to happen at the right time to entice an audience into the cinema and keep them coming. Many studios will begin the marketing for the film six to eight months prior to the film coming out to create anticipation for when the actual film comes out. However, in a usual case, many films do you not start their marketing and promotion process until around 3 months before the release of the film.



Source: http://www.mediaknowall.com/gcse/bbustermovies/movies.php?pageID=market


This can relate to our Thriller as if we were to create a full film and have professional companies to create our film into a blockbuster then it is important to have the knowledge of the marketing and promotion of films and how to ensure that a film is successful and makes a profit within its first week of release.

Alfred Hitchcock - Famous Director

Sir Alfred Hitchcock was an English film director and producer - often nicknamed 'The Master of Suspense', he pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. Often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker, he came first in a 2007 poll of film critics in Britain's Daily Telegraph, which said: "Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else."

• He was born 13th August 1899, in Leytonstone, London.
• He died 29th April 1980 aged 80, in Bel Air, California, USA.
• He married Alma Reville in 1926 until he later died in 1980.
• He and his wife had one daughter named Patricia Hitchcock.
• He produced films such as Psycho, The Birds, Vertigo and North by Northwest.
• He also wrote a book called Hitchcock on Hitchcock.