Evaluation

Evaluation

The film that I, alongside Iain Guy and Daniel Shippey, produced was an opening to a psychological thriller. Based around a young girl escaping from a dominant male, the film aims to please the demographic of teenagers. Therefore, we all decided that if this film were to be rated by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification), it would be given a certificate of fifteen. Generally, thrillers have a fifteen or eighteen certificate so we wanted to keep ours open to the younger age.
        We decided to call our film Parallel as is reflects the narrative that we created. Since the dream sequence and the reality both have corresponding themes, characters and emotions, we decided that Parallel would be best suited to represent this idea. Parallel also suggests that both the reality and the dream will lead to the same ending as they are set upon the same direction. The one word title is also striking as it is very short but has many connotations. This would leave the demographic questioning what the opening may be about, causing them to want to see the film.
         Our film challenges certain aspects of the usual thriller genre. Thrillers are usually based around a male protagonist to symbolise dominance and authority. However, our thriller opening opposes this idea as we use a vulnerable female. We wanted to do this as it is unusual and can lead into a new narrative that the public may not have seen before.
Thrillers often use low-key lighting to create fear. Although our dream sequence uses this convention, our reality scene does the opposite. High-key lighting is used when the breakfast is being made, in the bedroom and in the bathroom. We did this as we wanted to lead the audience into a false sense of security so that they wouldn't expect the ending of the opening. Furthermore, the high-key lighting has connotations of innocence and purity reflecting upon the main character: the female.
Our reverse- dolly zoom also challenges the usual camera shots. We decided to make it into a point of view reverse dolly zoom so the audience could see what the character was seeing.
The opening also portrays the usual codes and conventions to a thriller. Hidden identity is a key feature used within real media products. The male figure within the narrative, who is presented as a potential antagonist, never shows his face. This was deliberate as we wanted the audience to feel uneasy as they don't know who the male is. This helps to keep the audience interested as they want to find out more about this character.
We also used the usual camera shots within our film. Hand-held shots and point of view shots were used several times throughout our opening. We wanted the audience to see what the character was seeing as it gives an insight into their thought process. This is essential to psychological thrillers as the audience needs to understand the break down of the main character's mind.
Moreover, we used many close-ups/extreme close-ups to show the emotions of the female character. This was needed as it helps the audience to sympathise with her and understand how they should also react to certain events. This helps to create tension and suspense as the audience will feel uneasy if the character is too.
We felt as if red herrings play an important part in any thriller. Since we were doing a psychological thriller, we wanted to add twists to the opening to keep the audience engaged and asking questions. The main question of 'what is real and what isn't?' plays a great part within our opening due to the dream and reality scenes. The red herring we used was the girl waking up. The audience may not expect that to happen so it adds a small twist to the opening and keeps them 'on the edge of their seat'.
In post-production, we decided to use cuts for most of our shots. Cuts are often used for chase scenes so we wanted to use it within our dream sequence and reality. By using this technique we could achieve a fast paced effect to keep the opening moving. 
           Parallel represents different social groups and stereotypes to give both hidden and obvious meanings. As our protagonist is a young female girl, escaping from a dominant male, a realistic tone is set. The social structure of today's society stands for 'equality' although in a lot of situations, this is not the case. The hierarchy of men and women brings females to an inferior level in comparison to the 'superior' male. By having a vulnerable female character, our film represents society and the social groups within it. This represents the social group of inferior females in today's society.
Our film also represents teenagers. The audience is not told who the male figure is suggesting that he could be a parent figure. By doing this, teenagers are shown to feel trapped and the type to hide things away from the older generation. This may be due to stress, worry or personal reasons, portraying the real emotions that teenagers go through.
Our film could also represent the social group suffering from domestic violence. Although the female and male have a significant age gap, there is still hints that this could portray the issues within society (the subtle knife and the harsh sound effects). The girl is wearing a nightie whereas the male is wearing a suit. This represents dominance. The female also appears to be trying to escape from the male, within her dream, suggesting that she feels trapped within reality. This could hint towards a form of domestic violence.
Moreover, it represents the social group of the mentally ill.
Overall, we wanted to hint towards the female physically escaping but not mentally.
     When we first created Eden Pictures, we all decided that we wanted to be a British independent company like Warp. However, as we began to storyboard, film and edit we changed our minds and decided that our film would work better if it were distributed by a Hollywood company such as Paramount (The Godfather) or 20th Century Fox (The Happening). Both of these would be able to distribute our film better as they have many subsidiaries to market the product. This will involve horizontal and vertical integration to distribute through areas such as the internet and television. 
Our narrative is also very dramatic with the exciting, bold music. Many Hollywood films use music such as ours, so we thought it would work well with this type of institution.
Our film is also aimed to entertain globally rather than just focus on Britain, this means that a Hollywood institution would help to distribute our film across the world rather than focusing on the British audience.
           The demographic that we are aiming our film at is teenagers aged fifteen and over. Thrillers are usually a fifteen or eighteen so we decided to stick with a fifteen to allow more people to see the film. There isn't any major violence within our film, only hints, so a fifteen certificate works well rather than an eighteen. 
Teenagers seemed the best audience for our film as the main character is the age of the demographic. This makes her more relatable to the audience as they can understand her emotions, feelings and even the situation she may be facing.
We also considered that the full narrative would be based around the female killing her father, due to her mental state, so a fifteen certificate would be necessary if we made the whole film.
The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) state, 

'What about dangerous behaviour or things teens might copy?'
'We consider the risk of potential harm to impressionable teenagers. For example, dangerous behaviour such as hanging, suicide and self-harming should not dwell on detail which could be copied.'

Source: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/15
Therefore, if we did continue our film, the dangerous teenage behaviour would make our film a fifteen. An example of this would be in the opening to Sucker Punch when she accidentally kills her sister. 
      By having a female character rather than a male, we created a good unique selling point (USP) for a thriller.  Since the audience can relate to our protagonist, we attracted our demographic. 
The title also attracts our audience. The lexical choice was so that it was only a one word title so it was quick and snappy. It has many connotations so our audience will want to watch the film to find out exactly why it is called that.
The music we used also attracts our audience. The track we used is rather 'epic' and exciting to keep the audience entertained. It is also quite fast paced which will keep our audience 'on the edge of their seat.'
The setting that we used made it relatable to the audience. By using a home and the forest, we target areas in which our demographic would be very familiar with. This helps to attract them as the film becomes quite realistic and relatable.
        Throughout the process of making Parallel, I have learnt new ideas, techniques and the technologies used. 
The reverse dolly zoom was a camera shot that I had never tried before. By using my bike, we attempted to create this camera shot. Although it didn't turn our quite like we imagined, I was still very pleased with our attempt and the point of view shot it brought.  For the future, we will have to re-consider ideas on how to make this shot easier and smoother. 
Another camera shot that I learned was the 'invisible camera'. When I am walking across the landing to the bathroom, it appears that I move through the camera. I really want to use this technique in future films as it worked well.
Pans were something that I didn't think could be achieved very easily. However, our film uses them smoothly. I have learnt that a tri-pod is essential to gain the smooth effect that we wanted to portray on screen.
At the beginning we were told that we needed to include match on action, a shot reverse shot and a 180 degree shot. I didn't realise how essential these shots are to maintain continuity until we filmed. Match on action plays a huge role in keeping the film realistic and keeping a good pace. Without this, the film would be comedic rather than serious like a thriller should be. 
The reverse shot keeps dialogue flowing so it appears to be continuous. In our preliminary, we kept changing from one shot to the other whereas in our main task, we filmed all the dialogue from both sides. I found that our main task method worked better as the conversation flowed much more smoothly. 
Our 180 degree rule showed height and dominance, within our preliminary, and in our main task it sustained hidden identity. I learnt that this shot can have many connotations and have a huge impact on how the audience perceive the characters.
Through editing, I learnt that we can add filters to create different results. To make our dream sequence, we added a blue filter to make it seem surreal. I thought that this was a good idea that we should use in future films.
         The progression from our preliminary to our main task was rather large. Within our preliminary we didn't stray from the storyboard as we thought it was vital to stick to it. However, when we filmed our main task, we missed out certain shots and changed ideas. This seemed much more natural and helped us to create better shots. Also, we filmed the shot reverse shot in parts in our preliminary (we changed sides every time there was a new line) unlike the main task where we filmed all the dialogue from both sides to get a smoother effect. The camera shots we moved were complex within our main task in comparison to the preliminary. For example, the 'invisible camera' and the reverse dolly zoom were challenges that we attempted. By doing this, our film appears more ambitious in comparison to our preliminary. The effects we used in the two films, both differed to suit each. We used a simple greyscale effect in our preliminary to create a 'film noir' look unlike in our main task were we used a blue filter that we have to adjust ourselves. By doing this, we learnt how both effects can impact the final film.
              Overall, I feel as if I have learnt a lot from the creation of our films. I enjoyed the whole process from pre-production to post-production as there were times of laughter, fun and seriousness. If I could change one thing, I would give ourselves more time to film as we didn't anticipate how much we needed to film within our one day timescale. I think my favourite part of the whole process was creating the logo and editing as they really needed a LOT of detail to make sure that it looked as great as we imagined. I hope that in the near future, Eden Pictures can make another film that has as much attention to detail as this one did...
     

This is a final picture of us all.