Test 1

Test 2

Was Radiohead's "In Rainbows" business model a success?

Was Radiohead's "In Rainbows" business model a success?

On the 10th October 2007, Radiohead released their anticipated album online for free, or any price the user wanted to pay. They did this with no record label, and so kept all the profits. Even with people able to choose to pay nothing, the "In Rainbows" project still made Radiohead more money than they had made for the release of any other album. Radiohead's profits didn't just come from the later release of the CD, donations or the limited edition box set that was released on the same day as the download though, as most the profit came from the touring that Radiohead did later in 2008.

As success is mainly seen to be through the sales of the album, (although reception is also important), the main question is "did the business model pay off? The download site was up for 3 months, and during that time the album was downloaded 1,200,000 times. Wikipedia states that one third of the people who downloaded paid nothing for the download, and that the average paid was £4. If two thirds of 1,200,000 paid £4, then Radiohead made £3,200,000. The £40 box set was also bought by 100,000 people, which means that they made another £4,000,000 just for the box set. In total, Radiohead made a profit of £7,200,000 in a three month period without selling a commercial CD.

The CD was released on the 31st of December 2007, two and a half months after the release of the download and the box set, and were forced to sign with a record label to produce the CDs.

Thom Yorke claims to have released the album online in such an unorthadox manner was also because "every record for the last four—including my solo record—has been leaked. So the idea was like, we'll leak it, then." This claims that releaseing the album for any price was a move against piracy. However, in the first week of its initial release, the album was downloaded 500,000 times illegally using BitTorrent, so this part of the scheme was less successful. People may have done this to avoid giving an email that was required to download the album legally, or due to the relatively slow download speeds that plaged the site for the first few weeks.

Given the profits, asking the question "why would Radiohead let people choose what to pay" seems stupid, but then imagine that Radiohead had other plans for the scheme. If all Radiohead were after is the money, then consider that profit to be pocket change for them. Radiohead have a massive fan base, and releasing something to the public for free is always a good method of enlarging it further. That so many people downloaded the album illegally is also a good sign in this case, as it increases the amount of potential fans. In June of 2008, Radiohead started the "In Rainbows tour", which spanned across the globe. Given that there were likely over 50 concerts, with an average of _____ people going to each one. If each person paid the £42.50 fee for a ticket, then Radiohead made a further profit of ______. This figure dwarfs the profits from the sales of the album, and so it could be said that the business model was to attract the audience, and then later charge a larger audience far more than they would have paid for the stand-alone album. Due to this, I would have called the business model a complete success.


Now if only people would donate for my album...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Rainbows#Sales_and_chart_placings

http://www.gigwise.com/news/37670/exclusive-radiohead-sell-12million-copies-of-in-rainbows

Thriller Evaluation

In what ways does our media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We didn't want to challenge the Thriller genre, but use its conventions to make our film as close to the conventions as possible, and so we focused mainly on the "use and develop" aspects. As previously mentioned, we decided to take aspects from different thrillers and create a film which expanded on the conventions of the genre. This meant watching various different thrillers and finding themes, styles, ideas and techniques which are used regularly in the films. We then studied these (see my posts on thriller signifiers) and tried to incorporate them into our film (which is discussed in the shot evaluation). When we asked our media class whether "Selecting mise en scene to create particular effects" was successful, we recieved an average score of 9.2 and we told that the "black and white worked". We did decide to have an Asian actor for the lead, which is a rare occurrence in a British thriller, where the lead is most often white (“The Third Man”, “The Beat That My Heart Skipped” and “Phone Booth” all have white protagonists for example). We thought it would help to attract an Asian target audience, as well as the more stereotypical white-male target audience. We also tried to create a visual style with our film, which I have already discussed in previous posts. Our film is black and white, which is how the older thrillers were often filmed (such as “Vertigo”, or more recently, “Sin City”, which is filmed in black and white for the same reasons as us.), as it creates a high contrast between the only two available colours, which are always clashing. We made the film quite dark looking, as to relate to the theme of crime. We also used the contrast between black and white to highlight certain points of the film, such as the staircases we use, which are often black against white, to show the viewer when the character is walking, or how we used silhouettes to highlight the character against the background, to make them stand out. This has also been discussed in previous posts. When we asked members of our media class the question "Shooting material that is appropriate to the opening of a thriller film (was there evidence of thriller signifiers?)", we received possitive feedback and an average score of 9.1 out of 10, showing we managed to recreate the thriller genre.

How does our media product represent social groups and why?
As in most thrillers, the male lead in our film is strong, powerful and dominant, which helps to attract a male target audience and keep them engaged. We only used male characters because that is what the people who watch thrillers are normally expecting, and as mentioned, we want to keep the target audience that watched thrillers, Which our research claims is young to middle aged adult males. Our film makes crime seem very dangerous and unforgiving, portrayed by the death of one of the criminals in the film. The protagonist is also shown to be intelligent, powerful and cool, which are attributes the target audience will likely want to have, and so the film tells them that by mirroring the main character, they can become him. However, because he is so detached from the target audience (being a criminal, and by his quiet, almost inhuman attitude), he is only escapism to the audience, and not a very influential character. However, John Vanik is shown to be the polar opposite of Smith, as he is arrogant, and stupid. In this sense, we represent criminals in a negative way. Because Vanik is the antagonist, and the protagonist kills him, Smith's character becomes more desirable, because in killing Vanik, Smith is doing something the audience would likely want to do, but as the audience still realises that killing is wrong, he is further detached from reality. As the protagonist is the only Asian character in the film, he portrays the race in the same way as himself, with no other character, which can have a very powerful effect on the audience. As previously mentioned, the character is intelligent, powerful and cool, and so he portrays the entire race in that same way. Our film also represents the genders differently. As the entire cast is male, we create a very wide, varied representation of males, in comparison to females, who are completely left out, and are therefore made to seem less important and less likely to be criminals. As the target audience is male, however, we want males to seem more important and dominant than females, so the audience can better relate to the characters on screen.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I would try to get my film distributed by Miramax, as they are a company which have distributed other films similar to/ films which influenced our film, such as "Sin City" and "The Faculty". This means they have experience distributing thrillers, which leads to better advertising and therefore a higher chance of the film being successful. Thriller fans would also be more likely to look at the new films from the company as the company produces many famous thrillers such as "No Country for Old Men", “Essex Boys” and "Reservoir Dogs", meaning that my target audience would be very easy to locate.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
The members of our group compared research into what types of films different demographics were appealed to and discovered that out of our interviewees, males aged around their young twenties to late thirties were watched the most and were most interested in thrillers. This set us a target to appeal to, and we modelled our film around this. We then looked at the questionnaires of those who fell in our target audience, and looked for patterns in their interests. We noted that most people were only interested in the more recent thriller films, such as "Psycho", and prefered films such as "Sin City" and "Se7en". We also noticed that the people we chose in our target audience mostly prefered thrillers about crime syndicates and the underworld, such as "Resevoir Dogs", so we made our film about crime syndicates. Due to this, people who enjoy the more recent thrillers which are about crime syndicates become a part of our audience. The Asian lead in our film would also especially appeal to the Asian community.

How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted our audience by creating a main character that the audience could relate to, as people enjoy watching a film with a character they can relate to, so that they can imagine themselves in the film. Therefore, our protagonist is male and in his mid twenties to late thirties. (The younger side of this spectrum so that the audience can imagine themselves as slightly younger). Our choice of distributor would also attract our audience asthriller fans are likely to go to Miramax as they often distribute popular thrillers. We also used editing and filming techniques from the most popular thrillers, so to make our film feel similar to the films the target audience enjoyed.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
By the end of the project, we had learnt how to use all of the equipment we were provided with to a reasonable standard, and there are few things that we would have done if we had possessed the skill. The video camera, tripod and Adobe Premier Elements 1.0 were the three most important things that we had to learn how to use. We have learned the limitations and advantages of using each of these things, which I will now list. We used a relatively cheap handheld camera for filming, and during the continuity task and the thriller task we learnt some of the negative and positive points about it. Many of these were obvious, especially the advantages, such as its ease of use, its small size, which allowed us to carry and film by hand; and the speed at which it turns on, ready for use. However, we later discovered that the camera had many limitations which we had to work around while planning or filming, depending on whether the issue was anticipated or not. The camera creates a very low quality image in comparison to the stunning HD images we are often used to seeing in a professional film, but we realised this and there was nothing we could do to change it. We also knew that we there were issues when moving the camera, because the camera uses an auto-focus mechanism which means that the camera will blur the desired part of the scene for a few seconds before focusing. This meant that we were forced to use still shots for a lot of the film. This also affected zooming in, as the camera would keep re-focusing, often at the wrong part of the scene. The zoom function was hard to use as the button for it was very small and delicate, and so maintaining a zoom, or using a slow zoom were very hard to do, especially together, which is what we wanted to do. The battery of the camera was another anticipated problem, as we were forced to stop filming when the batteries died, although we had filmed everything we needed by this point anyway. The sound quality was also low, much worse than the quality of the video. To get the best out of the built-in microphone, the camera had to be close to the source of the sound, and background noise had to be kept to a minimum. The dark was an unanticipated problem we had, as we had never filmed in the dark, and did not realise that it would compromise the quality of the film. When in the dark, the camera lost a lot of visual quality and refused to focus. However, the places we filmed were well lit, even for the night time, so this was less of a problem than it could have been.The tripod was another vital part of equipment we had never used before this course, and so we had to learn how to use it. It was useful for holding the camera still, and used it for nearly all of our shots, even the moving ones, as we could move the camera on a pivot. We also used it for getting the camera into places previously unacceptable to us, such as holding the camera over the staircase in our film. However, the tripod could only extend to a certain height, which limited us to an extent. The shot which looks like it is from a security camera was shot with the tripod fully extended, and if it had been longer we might have tried to get the camera higher.The software we used was what limited us the most. Like the camera, it was created for ease of use and simplicity, and so it was easy to learn how to use the program and perform simple, essential tasks such as editing film together, uploading content, adding other types of media to the film and adding special effects to use on the media. However, there were very few useful effects, and changing how much we wanted to use the effects was very hard to do. There were also very few fonts useful for the style of our thriller, and so we had to find a free font online to install, using http://www.cooltext.com/. We then learnt how to install new fonts to the computer so they could be used by the program. However, editing was for us the hardest process, and all the questions we asked our media class regarding editing had the lowest scores. We have learnt, however, as we asked for feedback mid-editing, and recieived an even lower score then. This shows that we have developed our understanding and have since improved our editing even further.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?What would you do to the project with more time? Although we tried to learn everything we would need for the full product in the preliminary before we started the thriller, there are some things that we had not prepared for, and had to learn during the process. This includes several of the shots we used, such as the birds eye view shot of the staircase, which we originally planned to perform by holding the camera over the balcony with our hands. However, we could not get far enough, and had to use the tripod as an extension. We also learnt about the importance of proper lighting. We didn't use any lighting effects in our thriller or continuity, relying on natural lighting. We were very lucky that all of our shots worked, although there are still some parts which we thought would have profited from better lighting. I feel we have also learnt about the basics of the film making process. Starting with nothing, we still managed to create an interesting, successful film. Because we finished early, we had ample time to make changes, go back to the audience, ask for feedback and continue to make changes until there were no improvements that could be made (decided by viewers and the group). However, we would have profited with more skill and better equipment. This is mainly in the special effects part of editing, as better equipment while filming would likely only have resulted in a higher quality image, which does not particularly matter in this project. The main thing I would have liked to change was the effects we used on the text. I would have liked to make the text we used flicker, as mentioned previously on my blog, but we lacked the knowledge and equipment to do this successfully. I also would have liked to redo the shot where the ceiling partly obstructs our view, but even if I redid the shot perfectly, the mise-en-scene of the car park would have changed, the characters would look different (different hair for example) and the weather could be different which would mean that the shot would not fit into the rest of the film.

Personally, I am very pleased with our finished video. We did everything we set out to do when we planned to do it, learned new things and created a final piece which was far more successful than I ever could have anticipated.

Working Title Films

Taken from Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Title_Films
Working Title Films is a British film production company, based in London, England. The company was founded by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe in 1984. It produces feature films and some television productions. Eric Fellner and Bevan are the co-owners of the company now.
The company gained mainstream traction after the unexpected global box-office success of Hugh Grant-starrer, Four Weddings and a Funeral. Among the company's films are Richard Curtis-scripted romantic comedies, which usually star Grant, and Coen Brothers' films, but has in recent times moved into many other types of film, such as United 93.
In 2004 it made a profit of £17.8 million pounds sterling.[citation needed] As of 2007, all its films are distributed by Universal Studios, which owns a 67% stake in the company, and many of its recent films are co-productions with StudioCanal. The remaining shares are owned by the company's founders, BBC Films, and private investors.[citation needed]
The film company also has a smaller low-budget film brand, WT2 (Working Title 2) which has produced films such as Billy Elliot (2000) and Shaun of the Dead (2004).[1]
Recently the company produced Burn After Reading, a comedy starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

Cassie in "Skins"

Cassie is first presented to us in the first episode as a kind, but ditsy, head-the-clouds girl who is mentioned to be in a clinic, although we are not told why, and many things about her are made a mystery. In the second episode, which is where this short extract takes place, nearly all of the focus is on Cassie, revealing her personal life to the audience.

The scene opens after a clip of the boys of the show running away from a house half naked while the sound of a non-diegetic rock music sets the mood and adds to the frantic feeling of the scene. When the the scene ends, and we cut to Cassie sitting on a bus, the sudden loss of the music is creates a powerful contrast, emphasizing that she is not a part of their hectic, happy-go-lucky group. Not fitting in is one of the major themes in this clip, and is shown at various points. To further emphasize how she is different to them, and as we are now shown, all other people too; soft, instrumental music fades in to replace the rock music. By all other people too I am still focusing on the bus scene, where there are various signs showing us that she doesn't fit in to regular society. Buses are very regular objects in society, and this tells us that the people on the bus are likely to be ordinary too. In this scene, Cassie, in her stunning white dress, blond hair and pale complexion looks almost angelic, which is the first thing which suggests that she is out of place, whilst surrounded by a very dull, simple mise-en-scene and passengers wearing school clothes, suits or just regular clothing. This is another contrast which presents Cassie as an outsider. However, the music and her appearance tell the audience that she is still a character to care about, and that she is sweet and thoughtful, which we already know from our past experiences with her. She is again left out on the issue of eating. Cassie is shown to be anorexic, which is the reason, or one of the reason that she was in the clinic. When she sees the post-it note stating "eat" and places it on the window, the camera shows us several shots of people in the bus eating socially, which is something Cassie does not do, again making her out-of-place. This is again shown when the young girl offers Cassie a biscuit, which is then pulled away from her. The young girl in this case could represent the innocence of youth, and reminds Cassie of how she used to be, carefree and without any of her current problems. When she doesn't take the biscuit, it reminds her of how far she has come.

Her lonely characteristics are also shown when she returns home, and it is clear that she does not relate properly to her parents either, who seem to care a lot more for each other than for Cassie or even their new baby, shown by how she interrupts them at the start of the scene, and how little they pay attention to her afterwards, when she lies about eating, before promptly leaving again. This relationship between her parents is also shown in the mise-en-scene, in the paintings that the husband drew mostly of Cassie's mother naked. The one in particular that shows how they ignore their children is the one in the baby's room, which shows Cassie's mother giving birth, but all the attention is fixated between the artist (her Father) and the subject (her Mother), leaving the baby out of the focus, even just after birth.

Cassie shows that she is very attached to the baby, more so than the parents, showing us that Cassie is responsible, and likes children, which is shown by how willing she is to spend time with the baby, offering to take care of him. This could be because Cassie is happy in the company of a person that can't judge her or insult her, but only love her as much as she does. However, it could also be argued that Cassie herself wants to be a baby again, to be young and innocent, which fits in with the toddler on the bus offering her food and how it made her want to be that young and innocent again. This also fits in with her drinking from the baby's plastic beaker and explains the non-diegetic lullaby that plays over the top of the same scene, when she is putting the baby to bed. In the same scene, Cassie takes a drug, which is shown to be one of her forms of escapism, and then looks up at a mobile hanging above her, which is clearly imitating the same view that a baby would have looking upwards from a crib. This tells us that in her escapism, she is a child again, proving my hypothesis.

Problems in the project and feedback from members of our media class

What problems did we have when creating the media product?
The largest problem we had when creating our thriller was time, and how we should use it. Our original piece was over three and a half minutes, and so we needed to cut it down to the two minute limit. We realised this very early on, and so decided to cancel filming the first part of the opening, as it was deemed unnecessary, and would have no purpose besides making the opening longer. We eventually decided it would be best to cut down a lot of the speech and the reaction shots, which took about 40 seconds off the film. We also we forced to cut down on nearly every shot, in order to make them flowing and to shorten the film. This was hard to achieve as we had to time each shot change to the beat of the music, and still find room to place the credits. The shot we cut the most was the staircase shot, where we get a birds eye view of Tanwyn while the voiceover plays. We originally had the entire sequence from him at the bottom to top, but cut it because we thought it was boring, and because it took up too much time. The biggest problem I had with the finished piece has already been mentioned in shot evaluation, and is the black bar which obscures a lot of the side on shot of the two characters as they first meet.

With the members of our group agreeing that we could find nothing else to improve, we asked members of our media class to fill out a sheet with the following questions, and mark each point with a score out of 10. We had decided beforehand that if the average score for a point was under 8, that we spend some more time to improve the part with the low mark. Our target is so high because it has been said that all the power in the film industry is held by the audience. If the audience likes our film, then it can normally be called a success.

Average out of 10 & some comments left by the interviewee

Holding a shot steady: 9.5 + Steady throughout

Framing shots and choosing what to include and what to leave out: 9.2 + Good angles & left out irrelevant stuff

Using a variety of shot distances: 9.7 + Plenty of varied shots

Shooting material that is appropriate to the opening of a thriller film (was there evidence of thriller signifiers?): 9.1 + Stairs and narrow corridor + lots of thriller signifiers

Selecting mise en scene to create particular effects: 9.2 + Black and White worked

Editing so that meaning is clear to the viewer (was there a readable narrative?): 9.3 + Easy to follow & creates mystery

Using varied shot transitions and other effects appropriately: 8.2 + Music fitted the mood

Using sound with images and editing sound effectively: 8.2 -Sometimes hard to hear voice-over and speech +Music fitted the mood

Using titles effectively: 8.5 - Credits could have been up for longer

Any other points? (Representational issues? Effectiveness of characters? Did the opening hook you?): 9.0 -The swearing wasn't very classy "Dickhead"

We were very pleased with these results as we had no parts which had an average score of under 8. Because this meant we did not have to improve any parts of the film, and we still had a lot of time left due to finishing very early, we decided to put some more work into two out of three points that had a score of 8 to 9 . They are as follows.

Using sound with images and editing sound effectively: 8.2 -Sometimes hard to hear voice-over and speech +Music fitted the mood

Using titles effectively: 8.5 - Credits could have been up for longer

Both of these points were very easy to edit using the editing software, only requiring us to raise the volume bar of the speech layer of the software, and increase the amount of time where credits were shown using the time stretch tool. We have gone back and asked the same members of the media class, and they agree that these areas have since been perfected.

Thriller Shot Discussion

On Friday the 23rd of January, our group finished the editing of our thriller, and it is now available to be viewed on Youtube, or using the embedded player below.

In this section I will discuss all of the individual shots, and talk about what I like, disliked, and anything else which is interesting about the shot. I will show the image, and discuss underneath it.

We filmed the entire intro in colour, and afterwards decided to remove the colour using the editing software. We had already decided to do this in the planning stage, but we were not sure how it would look with and without. We did most of the editing before 

This shot was specifically designed to look like a CCTV camera shot to add voyeurism to the intro, as it is a thriller signifier (used in "Peeping Tom" and "Rear Window"). To film it in that way, we had to extend the tripod to as high as it would go, and then stand it on all of our bags and equipment to give it as much height as possible. There was a security camera right next to where we placed our camera, (the one seen in the next shot) and we thought that it would be most realistic as a security camera if it were right next to a real one. This also ensured that the angle that the security camera that we see next scene is similar to the angle we are presented with here. We made the scene look like it is from a security camera by using some of the effects in the editing software. Before we did this though, we looked on the Internet for some real security camera stills, and found out that most the images had several things in common, which were a high contrast, low colour saturation, a blurred and/or 'noisy' effect and the time, date and name of the camera. We made sure the shot used all of these effects, except for low saturation, because the shot was already in black and white. Although the program had built-in filters for most of these effects, the one we had to do manually was the time, date and name of the camera. To create this, we had to make another layer on top of the first, make two translucent black boxes, and write the desired text in them. We made sure to use a font which looked very simple, pixelated and monospaced, so that when the time or date changed, it would not affect the spacing of the other parts of text. To make the time change, we had to manually create lots of these layers, each with one more second on the clock, and place it in the layer after every second of film. Overall, the effect is very realistic and worked very well. We were very pleased with the mise-en-scene of the shot, especially the lighting, which works to cast long shadows, and creates strong light and dark patches. The brickwork also worked to our favour, and left us with an effect similar to the one in "Sin City", where each brick has a clear edge. In this shot, every brick has clear black lines surrounding it, which looks very stylised. This is one of the few shots which is nearly exactly the same as in the storyboards.


This shot is used simply to emphasize the previous shot and make it clear that the character is being watched. This is further emphasized with a slow zoom, which also adds interest. As there is not much going on in the shot, we thought it was a good place to add titles. The graffiti under the camera helps towards the dirty, urban effect we wanted to show. 




As with the other shot of Tanwyn's character, we can not see him clearly. In this shot, a silhouette effect is used, created by the chiaroscuro lighting. Both these effects are thriller signifiers. The silhouette helps to keep his character a mystery, which is the closest thing our opening has to a hook in the first 20 seconds. I also really like how we can see him through the glass. as it distorts his image and makes him look corrupt and dirty, which suits his character. Again, there is a lot of empty space in this shot, so we added titles in it to fill the space up. A part of the mise-en-scene that we liked in this shot was the "Fire exit" sign, which I liked so much that I took a picture in case we ever decided to use it in the film. The simple picture of the man running away in the opposite direction to the stairs is very effective, and hints to the audience that the character should be doing that too.


One of our main targets was to create a stylistic effect, and achieved this by highlighting key aspects of a shot. In this shot the black stairs and person stand out against the whitewashed wall, which we think creates a very powerful image, and emphasizes the kep points of every shot. This was partly influenced by the film noir genre's use of black and white, and how it shows key points in a scene, such as when Harry Lime is revealed in "The Third Man". The effect was also used in the computer game "Mirrors Edge", which uses a vibrant red colour which stands out against the background to show the player where to go, and this has been discussed in another post. We decided to get Tanwyn to enter the scene with his hand, which we wanted to slam down on the railing to give the audience an idea of his character before we get to find out much about him. This was done subtly, because we didn't want it to be something that would distract the audience. Again, we made sure to include titles to fill some of the empty space, and made sure to include another "Fire exit" sign for the same reasons mentioned above.


The bird's eye shot of the staircase is very generic of the thriller genre, and is exhibited in 'Vertigo' by Alfred Hitchcock. You can only see the character's hand or half of their body which adds to the mysterious form of the character that we are building upon. The character is walking towards the camera up the stairs, which suggests he walking towards something, in this case his death. Internal monologue is used, and it's another thriller signifier, in this case showing the innermost thoughts of what is suggested to be the main character due to the fact that he is the only character to have a speaking role in the opening sequence and also he is the one performing the internal monologue. Therefore, when he dies, it presents us with a twist, which is a thriller signifier. This shot was meant to be a lot longer, but we had to cut it to make the film stay under two minutes. However, we still could have had this shot longer, as we had wanted it originally, but as well as it just getting boring after a while, when the internal monologue had ended, there was a lot of time with no speech, and after the speech had ended the shot was very empty, and going from speech to silence created a dull shot.  



Boldly walking towards the camera implies that Tanwyn's character is confident and powerful, which suits his personality. This shot is also very visually interesting because of the strong use of vanishing points combined with the spiraling stairs. Another thing I liked about the shot was that at the end of it the briefcase swings in front of the camera, which makes it seem important, and creates an interesting transition between this shot and the next shot, as they cut as the briefcase swings past.





This shot was mainly used for four simple reasons, the first being that we only had one other shot where the camera moved, and we thought we would lose marks for only having one, and maybe even just two is pushing it. We also used so we could have a shot reverse shot, as this fits into the next shot, and the 180 degree shot was something we had learnt in the continuity editing project, and we wanted to include as much that we had learnt as possible. The shot reverse shot is a technique that was used a lot in our thriller, often so we could switch between the two characters. which brings me to reason three, which is simply so the next shot does not confuse the audience, as it helps if they see the door from both angles.

This is a long shot we used simply to fulfill the shot reverse shot mentioned above. However, it turned out far better than I could have imagined due to the spectacular mise-en-scene. What I liked about it the most is the powerful lighting which casts a dark shadow over the right side of the scene, which is metaphorical for the right side (the side Vanik walks down) being dark and dangerous, which fits the themes of the film. I also really liked the low ceiling, especially how they seem to take up a large amount of the shot, stretching perfectly from the middle of the scene to the corners; encasing Vanik, creating a menacing, claustrophobic effect, which I think is very effective and fits the mood of our thriller very well. I also think it would have looked good if the low part of the ceiling had been covering the character as well as to the sides of him, which would have boosted the menacing, dangerous effect it creates, but would have looked very different and would have ruined the lighting of the shot, as the light comes from inbetween the two bits of the ceiling. The only thing I don't like about the symmetry and how it fits the rule of thirds so perfectly is that we use the 'perfection' technique in our shots later on to signify how Smith is controlled, accurate, and most of all, perfect; so using the effect here makes very little sense because Smith has not yet entered the scene

This was another of our favourite shots. It is an over-the-shoulder shot, which although simple, is very effective, especially in this case, where we wanted to make Smith as mysterious and dark as possible. That he is standing still makes it seem like Smith has been waiting for a while, and is calm and collected, which is one of the character's attributes. Another thing which I liked about the shot was that it is perfectly centered, which again fits in with the Smith's character being precise and perfect. The lines marking a parking space are at the same angles, and John walks straight through it, lit up by the strong lighting, which also fits into the perfection of the shot, as the lights slash perfectly across the screen. The mise-en-scene is very empty and bland too, and it has a very urban look to it. The wide open spaces and the two characters head on almost adds a western feel to it, although this is best viewed in the next shot. We come back to the same shot after Vanik has moved closer to the camera, partly because we wanted to use the shot again, but also so we could show the entire distance walked by Vanik, because we wanted to be close to the character, so the audience is more surprised when he gets killed.





This was a shot we made up on the spot, because we liked as the triangle shape that creates a the look of a vanishing point, combined with the angle which gives it a real vanishing point, which gives the appearance that the character has traveled a long way, and that he is walking towards the end of it, which turns out to be true. We also really liked the slanted lighting of this shot, which gives it that urban look which we wanted, and keeps the inside well lit, where the outside is dark. We also liked the claustrophobic effect that this creates, as he is enclosed by the black of the edges, which could be perceived as his impending death.

This is a simple side on shot, which we liked, but wish we could have done again. The best things about it are the interesting lighting effect, which we loved, as it shines a light inbetween the two characters, dividing them, and clearly showing the audience where the action is going to take place. The light almost represents a no-mans-land for the criminals, who metaphorically avoid the light, which usually represents good. We also liked the same western feel that we had in the last shot, caused by the two characters meeting head on in a desolate space, which really adds atmosphere and tension to the scene, setting up the audience for what is to come, because it tells the audience subconsciously that the only way out is through one of the characters. However, the shot in my opinion was ruined by the placing of the camera, which was slightly off, causing there to be more empty space to the left of the scene, as well as making the angles not quite equal to each other, which kills the equilibrium of the scene. Another problem was the largest issue we had with the finished product, and that is the large bar which cuts off half of the scene. There was no way round it in filming, as the bar is the roof of the building, and the only way to cut it off would have been to move closer or tilt down, which would have looked even worse. We originally decided to create a cinematic effect, and move the scene up a bit, so that there would be black lines on top and below the scene, which would have given the scene a very stylistic look, which we wanted in our film. However, when we tried it it didn't fit in with the rest of the film, and was very distracting when it suddenly came in and went away, and so we decided to get rid of it. We also tried to enlarge the shot, so the whole shot would be larger, and we could move it upwards and cover up all the black bars, but this dramatically lowered the quality so we gave up. The last thing I didn't like about the shot was the positioning of Smith, as he is placed perfectly in a small space of black, which makes him look like a black box with legs sticking out, but there was no way to get around this in shooting without making the shot look worse or ruining some of the best effects the current shot creates, so again we gave up on changing it.

This next shot another of our best. We wanted to have a close up of Smith, to show how dangerous he is without revealing much of his face. This is why we wanted the trilby hat (besides its generic thriller roots), to cover up his face. The harsh lighting lights up one half of his face, and grows larger as he looks towards us. I really like how the black and white contrast each other in the shot, which draws a lot of attention to his right eye, which is the only distinguishable feature that is lit up. The best thing is that the hat creates a shadow which perfectly darkens his eye and fades as he leans upwards. This reminds me of an action/thriller, "Desperado", where the same effect is used. "It was as if he was always walking in a shadow. I mean every step he took towards the light, just when you thought his face was about to be revealed, it wasn't. It was as if the lights dimmed, just for him." The same effect is used in this shot. As he tilts his head upwards, the shadows fall back, but before you get to see him clearly, the shot cuts away, teasing the audience and making them want to see more. Another very powerful effect we managed to achieve while filming the shot was the blur which fades out as the shot progresses. At the start of the shot, Smith is blurred, but when he moves his head upwards, the blur slowly disappears. This was done for the same reasons as already mentioned, to make him hard to see clearly, but this effect manages the effect in a different way, and adds a lot more to the shot. It was very hard to set this shot up, as to create a blur effect, we had to focus on a piece in the background, and then bring the foreground in so that it would focus. Due to this, the shot had to be filmed very fast, so that the camera would not have focused on Smith before he had time to act. To achieve this, we had him waiting in position below the camera's field of view, crouching down, and had him stand up when we wanted to take the shot. We had to repeat this shot several times before we got the shot we used, as it was hard for him to act instantly.

This is one of the three main angles we used in the speech section for Tanwyn's character. This was a very basic shot that we used for the sole purpose of watching Vanik speak. We did still bear several things in mind. One of these things was the use of the 180 degree rule. Tanwyn comes in from the right, facing the left, and so we film him facing left for the speech, to avoid confusion. Notice that Smith always takes the left hand of the screen, facing right. This is also a good place to show how we used the rule of thirds in our film. Nearly every shot uses the rule of thirds, some better than others. Vanik's head is right in the middle of vertical and horizontal axes and therefore in the center square of the 3 by 3 grid. He is a bit more on the right than left, but this is for 180 degree rule purposes.

We used this shot in order to slowly reveal Smith to the audience, although even in this shot not much about him is clear, especially as he turns to look away from the camera in the very shot shot. This shot was mainly used to show how Smith responds to Vanik, and to show a contrast between him at this point and later when we see him looking far more dangerous, in order to show that he has grown angry, and isn't just an angry person in general. The shot itself is not particularly special or exiting, although we can get a view of the cityscape outside, and it is a shame that the cityscape was not more interesting from that angle. The lighting was also carefully set up for this shot, so that Smith was covered in shadow, keeping him looking secretive and mysterious.

We used these two shots in order to emphasize Vanik's anger when he shouts. "You do know who I am don't you? I'm John Vanik, you know, the son of fucking Harvey Vanik!" We wanted the words all to be very strong and loud, especially the last sentence, "I'm John Vanik, you know, the son of fucking Harvey Vanik!". In order to make these words stand out, we zoomed in for the sentence, so that the words feel more direct and louder. We thought that the technique was very effective, and makes the words seem louder. We deliberately made the effect very powerful, far more powerful than most other films that have used the technique.

This is my personal favourite shot of Smith in our video. The shot itself is nothing particularly special, and the mise-en-scene is the same things we have already seen, except for Lukman's acting, which was spot on, giving us a very subtle smile, which makes it look like Smith is humoring Vanik, but still has a very dangerous look in his expression, especially his eyes, which stay very focused and dark, and blink repeatedly to add interest. In this shot, we spent a lot of time to make Smith seem both humored and dangerous, which are very difficult emotions to keep together in one shot. We realised that blinking was a very effective technique when he did it repeatedly by accident during a scene, and we thought it looked interesting, and added a lot to emphasize almost any shot we tried it on. We tried to emphasize this effect by keeping the hat low down to cover his eyes, which darkens his eyes, adding to the already mentioned 'dangerous' look held by Lukman. In this shot, the key idea was to make Smith look very dangerous. By complete accident, the shot has a natural soft "grain" effect placed on it, caused by the lack of proper lighting, which not only keeps the shot from being too still and dull, but makes it look like there is an aura around Smith, and is incredibly powerful at emphasizing his dangerous look. We also deliberately held the camera by hand, so that the camera swayed gently side to side. This gentle swaying effect complements the humour in Smith's expression, but also creates an unstable atmosphere which complements the dangerous side of the character.

This is the third and last unique angle we used when filming the speech section. We wanted to make Vanik seem less powerful than in the last shot of him; where we use a cut to a close up to exaggerate his anger because his efforts to intimidate Smith are failing. However, as this is Vanik's last attempts at a protest, we wanted the words to be direct and still quite strong. To suits this criteria, we used a camera angle which is much closer to being head-on than some of the others of him we have used in the speech section. This makes us closer to the object he is shouting at, which makes the audience more feel like they are the ones being shouted at than a shot from behind Vanik, which would give them the feeling that they are the ones shouting at someone. However, we keep the camera quite far away from the character in comparison to the normal distance from a speaking person, especially while shouting. This is to make the audience feel further away from the character, so his words have less effect. At this point, these techniques mixed with his arrogant, obnoxious attitude should make the audience feel bored and annoyed at Vanik, which is what we want them to feel, so that when Smith kills him, and therefore claims protagonist status, the audience already likes him.

We used this camera angle for the second time, mainly for the same reasons as last time, but this time it used to focus on the briefcase, which we thought looked very stylised as it spins against the white wall. This is the stylistic effect is the same we have used throughout the film, and has already been explained. We were not sure weather to include this shot as it didn't capture the emotions of the characters. The briefcase was meant to be thrown roughly at Smith, as a form of assault, and this angle doesn't capture it. However, we later decided that we would combine it with the following shot to create this effect, and that we didn't want the film to be dominated by action, and so we included it. 

The last few shots featuring Smith have had angles which have been slowly moving behind Smith. Although this does break the 180 degree rule, it was done deliberately. Up until very recently, Vanik has been presented as the main character, but we grow to dislike him, and so the main character slowly becomes Smith. To achieve this, we moved the camera around until it was behind Smith, which makes it seem like the audience is backing him, which is what we want them to do. The next shot takes this even further

In this shot, we move all the way behind Smith, so that we feel as close to the character as possible. This was originally meant to be an over the shoulder shot, but we decided to move even further behind Smith to feel closer to him, and so the gun is facing directly away from the audience, and at Vanik. This makes the gun feel closer to us. We would have moved the camera completely behind Smith, but if we had we would not have been able to see the gun, which is one of the most important parts of the shot. Notice how both Smith and the gun are silhouettes, which is done deliberately to separate them from the rest of the scene and to make the two seem like they are physically joined together, so that the gun is an extension of Smith's body. This makes it seem like he has complete control over the gun, which shows us that he is skillful.

This shot was used to make the audience fill Vanik's shoes, and so we filmed it directly facing Smith, and more to the point, the gun he is holding. This is mainly so that when the gunshot sound is played, the audience will feel like they have been shot (much like the shot used in the intro of all of the "James Bond" films), and this will be discussed further in the evaluation of the next shot. This shot is the clearest on of Smith we have been presented with, and is done to make it seem like the assassin only reveals himself when it no longer matters, which is very professional, and is a method which has been used in many films. However, I wish we had made his face darker in this shot so that we never see him; although this is a bad idea considering he is to become the main character, and the audience needs to grow close to him. The other alternative would be to bring the camera closer to Smith, and then light up his face more, which adds to the professional effect discussed above, and would reveal his face to the audience more efficiently, which as also already been discussed. Moving the camera closer to Smith would also increase the amount of room the gun takes up on the screen, which is very important, as it would make Smith look more dangerous. 

This shot was put in to show the audience the name of the film, and to complement the last shot, where Vanik is shot. The sound of the gunshot rings into this shot, which links the title of the film (and as the title represents the entire film, then the entire film too) to murder, which sets the mood of the film, and tells the audience what sort of film they are about to see. Going from a gunshot into a black screen is a very powerful technique, as it makes it feel to the audience like they have been shot, as they leave the scene with the murdered person. This is partly why we used a black screen, but we also used a black background for another reason. This reason is that, as mentioned several times over the project, the colour black has connotations of death, darkness and evil. We were greatly inspired by the film "Se7en" when creating our thriller, especially in the style of the film. Due to this, we used a font which looked like a broken-typewriter, as typewriters are often used in thriller films for their mechanical operation and their appearance, which in thrillers is often quite dirty, metallic, and mechanical. The "broken" aspect of the font was to make the typewriter seem dirty, run down and faulty without seeing it. We wanted to make our text flicker in a very similar to the way it does in "Se7en", but this was very hard to achieve with our limited equipment and skill, and so we decided not to make the text flicker in the other parts of the thriller, where the font is used for company credits and actor names. However, we really wanted to achieve the flickering effect, and found a way to do it by moving and changing the text every few milliseconds, but this took a lot of time to do, so we decided to do it where the audience would notice it the most; in the last shot, where the text is the only thing in the shot besides the blank background, which is not at all distracting. The flicker effect makes me think of a dying lightbulb, which is a very powerful image, as the light dying is metaphor for life being extinguished, which it has been. On reflection, I would have liked to have taken the text away with the final flicker, so that it looks like the text is Vanik's life, flickering and dying.

Initial planning: As a group, we wanted to create a thriller that would use various aspects of the thriller genre from its creation to the present. This would lead us to create a thriller that would appeal to a wide target audience, and would use successful techniques that have already been proven by their success. We watched various thrillers, choosing them for their success, release date and sub-genre. To name a few, we watched:
The Third Man: Possibly the most famous thriller of all time, we were inspired mainly by the clever camera angles and mise-en-scenes used in the film, as well as the contrast between black and white to create a very powerful image.
Vertigo: Hitchcock is often referred to as the "father of thriller", and Vertigo is among his most famous. We were mainly looking for the use of camera angles in this, and we took several shot ideas from this film, in particular the staircase shot we used.
Layer Cake: A very conventional modern thriller, Layer Cake uses some very powerful, effective camera techniques and its use of music made us realise that music could be very effective in our film.
From Dusk Till Dawn: The first half of this film is a thriller, and is very edgy and quirky, which gives it a unique flare which separates it from the crowd. We wanted to make sure that our film was not conventional in every way, and had a different feel about it.
Ichi the Killer: This Japanese thriller also has a very unique style, created by its odd sense of humour and our relationships with the character, as well as a confusing narrative. Its use of crime syndicates and how the people in them operate was interesting, and gave me a lot to think about in terms of how the members of different ranks communicate. This led to the choice of our two characters, and how the son of a crime lord communicates with other characters.
Sin City: This the comics which the film was directly based on was heavily inspired by the film noir subgenre of the thriller genre, which we wanted to incorporate in our film. As this film was inspired by so many other famous thrillers, taking ideas from this saved us a lot of time. For example, the use of black and white, the theme of corruption and the birds eye staircase shot. The boss's son in our film was also closely modeled on Roark Junior.
Se7en: This film gave me the most inspiration, and this is clear from many features of our film, such as the style of text and music. Its nihilistic narrative was also inspirational - I find that too many films have happy endings, especially in thrillers, which should leave the audience with a lot to think about. Se7en had an ending which made me really think.

In our group, we compared ideas we had gathered from other thrillers and came up with some basic ideas, which we slowly shaped into our end result. This is all explained in previous posts.


Feedback from members of our media class

We asked members of our media class to fill out a sheet with the following questions, and mark each point with a score out of 10. We had decided beforehand that if the average score for a point was under 8, that we spend some more time to improve the part with the low mark. Our target is so high because it has been said that all the power in the film industry is held by the audience. If the audience likes our film, then it can normally be called a success.

Average out of 10 & some comments left by the interviewee

Holding a shot steady: 9.5
+ Steady throughout

Framing shots and choosing what to include and what to leave out: 9.2
+ Good angles & left out irrelevant stuff

Using a variety of shot distances: 9.7
+ Plenty of varied shots

Shooting material that is appropriate to the opening of a thriller film (was there evidence of thriller signifiers?): 9.1
+ Stairs and narrow corridor
+ lots of thriller signifiers

Selecting mise en scene to create particular effects: 9.2
+ Black and White worked

Editing so that meaning is clear to the viewer (was there a readable narrative?): 9.3
+ Easy to follow & creates mystery

Using varied shot transitions and other effects appropriately: 8.2
+ Music fitted the mood

Using sound with images and editing sound effectively: 8.2
-Sometimes hard to hear voice-over and speech
+Music fitted the mood

Using titles effectively: 8.5
- Credits could have been up for longer

Any other points? (Representational issues? Effectiveness of characters? Did the opening hook you?): 9.0
-The swearing wasn't very classy "Dickhead"

We were very pleased with these results as we had no parts which had an average score of under 8. Because this meant we did not have to improve any parts of the film, and we still had a lot of time left due to finishing very early, we decided to put some more work into two out of three points that had a score of 8 to 9 . They are as follows.

Using sound with images and editing sound effectively: 8.2
-Sometimes hard to hear voice-over and speech
+Music fitted the mood
Using titles effectively: 8.5
- Credits could have been up for longer

Both of these points were very easy to edit using the editing software, only requiring us to raise the volume bar of the speech layer of the software, and increase the amount of time where credits were shown using the time stretch tool. We have gone back and asked the same members of the media class, and they agree that these areas have since been perfected.

What problems did we have when creating the media product?
The largest problem we had when creating our thriller was time, and how we should use it. Our original piece was over three and a half minutes, and so we needed to cut it down to the two minute limit. We realised this very early on, and so decided to cancel filming the first part of the opening, as it was deemed unnecessary, and would have no purpose besides making the opening longer. We eventually decided it would be best to cut down a lot of the speech and the reaction shots, which took about 40 seconds off the film. We also we forced to cut down on nearly every shot, in order to make them flowing and to shorten the film. This was hard to achieve as we had to time each shot change to the beat of the music, and still find room to place the credits. The shot we cut the most was the staircase shot, where we get a birds eye view of Tanwyn while the voiceover plays. We originally had the entire sequence from him at the bottom to top, but cut it because we thought it was boring, and because it took up too much time. The biggest problem I had with the finished piece has already been mentioned, and is the black bar which obscures a lot of the side on shot of the two characters as they first meet.

In what ways does our media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We didn't want to challenge the genre, but use its conventions to make our film as close to the conventions as possible, and so we focused mainly on the "use and develop" aspects. Like previously mentioned, we decided to take aspects from different thrillers and create a film which expanded on the conventions of the genre. However, we did decide to have an Asian actor for the lead, which is a rare occurrence in a British film, because we thought it would help to attract an Asian target audience, as well as the more stereotypical white-male target audience. We also tried to create a visual style with our film, which I have already discussed. We wanted this style to use blocks of colour to separate parts of a scene. For example, we use this effect on the silhouettes of Smith and Vanik, and often with stairs.

How does our media product represent social groups and why?
As in most thrillers, the male lead in our film is strong, powerful and dominant, which helps to attract a male target audience and keep them engaged. We only used male characters because that is what the people who watch thrillers are normally expecting, and as mentioned, we want to keep the target audience that watched thrillers. Our film also glamorises crime, and social groups attached to it. It does this by making the life of a criminal seem exiting, and the protagonist is also shown to be intelligent, powerful and cool, which are attributes the target audience will likely want to have, and so the film tells them that by mirroring the main character, they can become him. In a way, he is a role model, even if we didn't plan it that way. However, John Vanik is shown to be the polar opposite of Smith, as he is arrogant, and stupid. In this sense, we represent criminals in a negative way. Because Vanik is the antagonist, and the protonist kills him, Smith's character becomes even more desirable, because in killing Vanik, Smith is doing something the audience would likely want to do. As the protagonist is the only Asian character in the film, we also portray the entire race in the same way as that one character, which can have a very powerful effect. As previously mentioned, the character is intelligent, powerful and cool, and so we portray the entire race in that same way.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Channel 4 would be the first media institution I would consider to distribute our product. This is because a part of the Channel 4 empire, Film4 Productions help to fund or screen British films from less mainstream directors. Channel 4 are also less picky when it comes to the editing and visual quality of a film than BBC or Sky, and show films more regularly, when combined with another part of the Channel 4 company, Film4.

Who would be the audience for our media product, and how did we attract/address your audience?
Our questionnaire results show that young male adults are the best target audience for a thriller. However, as well as the target audience found through my questionnaire, the target audience for our film would also be the same audiences that the films we were inspired by had. For example, the target audience for "Se7en" is a part of our target audience because our film is closely modeled on that film, and so the people that enjoyed "Se7en" are likely to enjoy our film. This applies to all areas of our film. By this I mean that as the boss's son character was influenced by Roark Junior from "Sin City", and so people who really liked that sort of character are also likely to enjoy our character, because they are so similar. As our film uses so many themes, conventions and ideas from other films, we think that we will have a large target audience.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
By the end of the project, we had learnt how to use all of the equipment we were provided with to a reasonable standard, and there are few things that we would have done if we had possessed the skill. The video camera, tripod and Adobe Premier Elements 1.0 were the three most important things that we had to learn how to use. We have learned the limitations and advantages of using each of these things, which I will now list.
Video camera
Positive:
Small, and therefore handheld
Easy to use
Fast to turn on and start filming
Negative:
Low quality
Takes time to focus when subject is changed dramatically or quickly
Sound quality is low and must be close to source of sound
Battery only lasts an hour
Hard to film with success in the dark
Hard to maintain a constant zoom or a very slow zoom

Tripod
Positive:
Allows camera to be placed in places unaccessible to people safely (used for getting the camera over the staircase)
Holds camera far more stably than a person could easily
Holds camera very securely
Negative:
Only extends to a certain height

Software
Positive:Allows us to easily edit film together
Easy to upload content
Easy to add other media to the film
Easy to add effects
Negative:
Only provides a small amount of effects
Takes a long time to export in a high quality format
Hard to move the bar which affects the effects a small amount
Only a few preset fonts, none of which looked very effective or professional

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? What would you do to the project with more time? 
Although we tried to learn everything we would need for the full product in the preliminary before we started the thriller, there are some things that we had not prepared for, and had to learn during the process. This includes several of the shots we used, such as the birds eye view shot of the staircase, which we originally planned to perform by holding the camera over the balcony with our hands. However, we could not get far enough, and had to use the tripod as an extension. We also learnt about the importance of proper lighting. We didn't use any lighting effects in our thriller or continuity, relying on natural lighting. We were very lucky that all of our shots worked, although there are still some parts which we thought would have profited with some better lighting.
There are lots of other little things that I would change if I could redo this project, but only thanks to the knowledge gained from doing this, and if I were to do it again, I'd only learn new things to further improve the video should it be redone a third time. However, there are some things I have mentioned in the evaluation of individual shots which I would like to have changed with the time. These include making the text disappear and keeping the shots with both characters from a side on view balanced, but as already mentioned, if I fixed these things, I'm sure I could find many more things I don't like about the film, and I come back to the same point.
I feel we have also learnt about the basics of the film making process. Starting with nothing, we still managed to create an interesting, successful film.

Personally, I am very pleased with our finished video. We did everything we set out to do when we planned to do it, learned new things and created a final piece which was far more successful than I ever could have anticipated.

Analysis of film posters

Film posters have a very small amount of time to get the message across. They can be printed on the side of a bus, the walls of a metro system or even plastered on a building. Even with film posters being printed in a very large amount of places in todays society, they still only engage us for a fraction of a second. There are thousands of different posters, and each one is fighting for our attention. To make up for this, graphic designers have two goals when creating a poster for a film; to be striking so that people will look at them for as long as possible, and to tell us as much as they possibly can about the film in that split second of our undivided attention. As every poster is fighting against all the others at the same time, this is the only way to make theirs stand out.

There are millions of pounds spent on some films to get them well advertised. This allows them to create powerful, striking posters, and display them in a lot more places than a film with a lower budget for posters. "Star Wars: The Attack Of The Clones" had a $25,000,000 budget for adverting alone. The OCR Media Studies for AS textbook claims films often have "50 per cent going on promotion as opposed to what you actually see on screen". Due to so much money going into advertising, posters are designed incredibly carefully.

I will be looking posters from two different thriller films, "Phone Booth" and "Panic Room" and analysing them to find out how companies advertise a film for a certain audience.

Panic Room

"Panic Room" is a film where a woman and her daughter are locked in the panic room of their house, while three criminals need something which is trapped in with them. How much of this is clear from the poster? For starters, "PANIC ROOM", is also the name of the film, and is written in a clear, red font, with a slight italicisation to give the words an edge, and the slight tilt does successfully add some suspense to the font. It is also worth noting that in a lot of films, the title of the film is very spread out, often spanning the width of the page. In this, the words are tightly packed into a perfect parallelogram, which relates to the film, in which the main characters are trapped in a small room.
This effect is also shown on the main part of the advert. two thirds of the advert are filled completely in black. This could easily be seen as a complete waste of space, as there is no point paying for space for a large advert if the intention is to make it smaller with a border. However, in this poster, there is a point, as the black walls of the image symbolise the walls of the room they are trapped in. Notice how the face of the protagonist is cut off at the sides, which symbolises that she is under immense pressure; where the silhouette of one of the antagonists is right in the middle of the image, to show dominance, and that he has a large amount of space either side of him. This shows that he has the upper hand. Also notice that he is above the protagonist, essentially standing on top of her. This adds to the claustrophobic effect of the walls closing in; the man has got the vertical covered too, which adds even more tension to the scene. It could also be interpreted differently; while there are walls to either side and below the main character, there is a space above her nearly to the edge of the poster, far more room than there is to any other side. This shows that the antagonist is blocking the path to a potential escape - notice how he is standing in front of a door, which supports this. Another point is that only the main actor's name is written in large letters at the top of the image, to suggest that she is alone, because her daughter plays a far smaller and less important part, and needs protecting far more than the lead character.
Going back to the bright red of the text - notice how it is the brightest part of the advert, while everything else is faded out, which draws attention to the text, which, as the title of the film, is possibly the most important part of the advert. The washed-out colours used in there rest of the advert show that the film is going to be a dark, negative film, which is a thriller signifier. The effect used makes the image look 'dead', as the protagonist could be dead in the image - there is enough evidence to suggest that she is, on her side on the floor, with very little colour in her face. The film would look too bright and cheerful if there were clearer, brighter colours, which is not an effect often used in thrillers. To show this, I have manipulated the image to show what it would look like. As you can see, the image looks far more alive, but it looks wrong in terms of that the image is not meant to look action-packed or exiting, as none of the characters are moving and that the film is quite slow moving, with far more emphasis on tension than action.

Phone Booth

"Phone Booth" is also a single-location thriller, but varies in several ways to "Panic Room", and this is shown clearly in the differences in the two posters. Where "Panic Room", poster is full of empty spaces, "Phone Booth's" poster is packed full of images and words; full of colour. This makes the poster, and therefore the film, seem much more lively and exiting, whereas "Panic Room's" poster makes the film look dull and saturated. The poster employs several methods to ensure that the film seems thrilling and exiting, and these same techniques help to catch a potential customer's eye. One of these such methods is the tilted camera angles used in nearly every part of the poster, such as the main image of Colin Farrell in the phone booth and the text, namely the title and credits, which are written at a very large angle to the horizontal. Tilting the camera is an effect used in many films, especially thrillers, and are very engaging when used properly, and can create a twisted, disconcerting effect. In this case, the effect makes the poster more energetic, and sets the mood, complementing other parts of the poster, and helping them stand out. However, there are parts which do not use the tilted camera, and these are very bold and important, so that they stand apart from the rest of the advert, signaling them as important. The two parts which do not use the angled shot are the slogan and the lead actor's name. The name stands apart from the advert because he is not a part of the film - his character is; and therefore is not a part of the advert.
The slogan is the other piece of horizontal text, and is written in bold, capitals and in red to show that it is a very important piece of the advert, and therefore it is likely to be read by the audience. It reads "YOUR LIFE IS ON THE LINE", which is a pun, which suggests that the film is fun and full of entertainment. It is written in bold and in capital letters, making the text stand out and seem important, so it is one of the first distinctive things about the advert that the audience will see, and therefore is more likely to remember, which is what the advert aims to do in the first place. The colour of the text is also important, as it is in red, which has several connotations, such as blood and danger, which is what the creators wanted the audience to think of the film from a first glance. The colour red also contrasts the blues used in a lot of the advert, which makes the two stand apart, complementing each other, and added to the effect of the text and the images.
The main part of the advert shows the main character in a phone booth, with a bullet in the side of the booth; with three people on the other side of the booth. The main character has a scared pose, which tells the reader that he is afraid of something. Combine this with the title of the film and that he is holding a phone, we presume the phone is related. In a short amount of time, we learn a large amount about the film. The bullet hole in the window adds to this effect, and makes the mise-en-scene a far more tense environment, but it also uses the same concept that the doorway created in the poster for "Panic Room", which is a way out. Colin Farrell's character is trapped in a phone booth, and a close up camera makes the space seem smaller, enclosing the character tightly. There is no door to be seen, and three shocked figures watch from outside the booth. The bullet hole is his only way out, suggesting that the only way out is to be shot (which does prove to be true, which only strengthens this idea, although this is unknown to an observer who has not seen the film, which is the target audience).

The future of music is simple, free, and now.

Every now and then, something comes along and completely revolutionizes the music industry. In 1957, "The Quarrymen" were conceived. In 1966, "The New Yardbirds" played their first concert. 1969, and "Smile" had just been signed to Mercury Records. More recently, in 2006, a team of programmers got together with a plan to revolutionize the music industry. It took John Lennon several years for his unheard of new band, "The Beatles" to become a household name. Two years after the debut of "The New Yardbirds", they disbanded,"Led Zeppelin" rose from the ashes. In 1970, Tim Staffell left "Smile", and "Queen" were born. 2007 was the year that Spotify, an unheard of music streaming service was released to the public.

Still relatively unheard of even two years later, Spotify is a 100% legal music streaming service that offers lightning fast, reliable, and most importantly, completely free playback of a huge library of music, with the help of several major record labels, such as Sony BMG, EMI Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. The free version of the program contains small, appropriate adverts on the side of the screen, and the paid version (which as of now, only removes the adverts) costs $10 for a monthly license. This system pays for all the fees the creators need to pay to the record companies, whilst leaving the user with their freedom. The program is currently in beta, meaning there are still glitches in the software to be ironed out, although there are none obvious to the average user. The program takes up a mere 1.45 MB of hard drive space, and less than four times the processing power of Windows Media Player to play a song; a minuscule amount to sacrifice for all the world's music at your fingertips. For the time being, Spotify is only available to download to people with invitation codes, five of which are given for free to anybody who has already installed the software. The program allows for many of the features seen in the most popular music players, such as iTunes, Windows Media Player or Songbird, whilst containing a similar recommendation system to Last.FM. It also has a built-in Last.FM scrobbler, allows for playlists, song queues, and has a very similar user-interface to each of the media players listed above, and so can be easily picked up by anybody with no hassle.

Spotify has the potential to end music piracy. Why would anybody want to risk downloading a song illegally when they could listen to the song for free, in a simple, convenient way? The software also has a "Buy from" option, giving users the option to purchase the track so they can add it to their music collection or carry it around on a portable device. Through my eyes, Spotify has not only the potential to end music piracy, but to open new doors to the entire media industry. Imagine being able to watch films and TV shows on a software much like the one we are here presented with? Think 4OD or BBCi, but in one convenient package.

Spotify is music freedom in an EXE file. No longer will iTunes' DRM force us to spend £160 on the latest iPod to listen to music portably, or Last.FM's "full track" service telling us that a song can only be listened to a small number of times. As "The Quarrymen", "The New Yardbirds" and "Smile" before it, Spotify will revolutionize the music industry.

If anyone should want an invite to Spotify, send me an email at my school address.