Our plan for the film was always to conform to Todorov's theory of narrative; equilibrium, disequilibrium, and establishment of a new equilibrium. However, the only sense of equilibrium would be seen in these opening shots, before the title appears and the victim is attacked. The vast majority of the film would be during the disequilibrium, and the new equilibrium would occur at the very end of the film, if at all (leading into the possibility of a sequel.)
The title itself "Dagger" is particularly conventional for the thriller genre, as single word titles have been popular recently in films such as "Saw" and "Taken." The word "Dagger" has dangerous connotations as a violent word, and is particularly open to its narrative concept. Using a masked, obsessed killer is fairly stereotypical of the horror genre, but we tried to push this
convention further, in the killings are spontaneous and unrelated, and usually occur in public places (as seen with the nearby football pitch), which has the possibility of creating fear in the audience for believing a vicious attack could occur anywhere, at any time. This is defiantly unconventional for horror and thriller films, as murders tend to happen in private areas, such as the victims own home. However, both make the audience feel uneasy about their safety in life. In an attempt to continue this theme, and suggest anyone could be a victim, our victim in this clip is male, which is a development on the genre, as many similar films have their first victim as a promiscuous female, who is presented as vulnerable due to her life choices. This is similar to the film "Pulse" in which the first victim is the boyfriend of the protagonist, but is needed as the ignition to the course of the narrative, and doesn't seem to be an outright rebellion to the genre.The costume of the both killer and victim is fairly ordinary in modern British youth culture. This gives hints towards who the killer is, and who future victims are likely to be, as well as to show that the narrative could be real, and that the viewer could be a possible victim. The villain however still follows conventions of past horror/thriller films, as his hood gives him an imposing edge, and the anonymity that a serial killer would need. His mask induces fear also, as it seems fairly childish and ordinary, conveying the killer's unprofessional and simplistic nature. Using typical British fashion is however, unconventional, as this genre is not frequently produced in the UK, and examples such as Tormented seem to be the only exception. We wanted to keep our props fairly conventional, as a knife for a murder weapon is used frequently (as well as it's connections with the films title.) However, when it came to filming we did not use one for safety reasons.
The pace of the piece was deliberately kept slow, by slowing each clip down slightly and using a non diegetic track which is of a similar pace, which is a convention of the suspenseful horror/thriller, and used to develop tension and a sense of foreboding. However, there were only a minimal amount of camera shots used, and transitions were used to make make reinforce the concept of the victim being watched. This is unlike many past films we took inspiration from, where many shots and quick editing is still used for the same slower pace, but this is usually due to the amount of details that need to be shown.
Similar to films such as "Saw" and "Transsiberian", our killer is not fully introduced straight away. However, unlike "Saw" in which the villain is revealed in the concluding scene, our villain, and his trademark mask is revealed in the opening, but after the first killing takes place. This gives the audience supposed awareness of the killer, but only their alias, and not their true identity, or their motive.
The opening sets up the story in a similar fashion to other horror films, such as the Saw 2, which opens with a killing that happened previously to the majority of the film. Throughout the film, there would be references back to this point, possibly though the use of flashbacks, so this is a significant point in the course of the narrative.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I am unsure whether the clip itself represents particular social groups. The victims would be mostly British teenagers, or in their early twenties, but as the story would also focus on the police hunting down the murderer and their lives, British middle aged workers would also be explored.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
As a British film, it would not be surprising if the film was funded by the UK Film Council, who are ultimately funded by the National Lottery. Many recent films have been associated with them, such as the critically acclaimed Nowhere Boy. An association with Film4 may also be helpful, as they have the ability to distribute to a wide audience, through both theatrical release and television broadcasting. However, successful American companies such as New Line Cinema may still be interested, but production would be on a much higher budget, so the film would be very different to its current state. With this in mind, we used their uniform opening clip in our opening.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for our piece I believe would be mostly male (but still a large amount of female) teenagers or in their twenties, due to the violent nature of the killings, feeling of suspense and fear, and pop culture references. However, the partial focus on the detectives may attract older members of the public as they may be able to relate to the themes that occur, such as balancing work and family. They would probably be current fans of the thriller horror genre, and similar work such as Seven, or just be interested in new British films
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
We attempted to attract our audiences through costume, as the modern, youthful fashions can attract others of that age range.
The serial killer thriller genre has a strong fan base, and are generally well received, so we took inspiration from these, saw there were similarities.
In the full film, we would cast famous actors to attract those who are already aware of the actors previous work, or wish to see them in the cinema.
The enigma created by our opening may attract men, due to the violence and tension, as well as the mystery surrounding the tracking of the killer, as well as attractive female characters.
However, women may also be attracted due to the anticipation of being scared, and attractive male actors.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
For this project, the school had bought new digital camcorders, that record directly to SD card. We didn't have many problems with this, however, I am aware some had problems with the clips being deleted from the camera. Once clips were uploaded and editing began on iMovie, we first found difficulty in understanding how to perform simple tasks, as our GCSE project was on completely different software. Luckily, the tutorials on the website was very helpful, and we soon gained enough understanding to create a high quality video. However, there were limitations that we wished we had the ability to overcome, for example, changing the position in which the titles appear on screen. Overall, I do believe this software was better than that we used for GCSE, as the videos frequently froze and the software would need frequent restarting, so using iMovie was a definite improvement. Garageband we did have difficulty using, as nether of us had much musical knowledge, and we couldn't find a way to compose a piece to fit the timing of our opening exactly. Instead, we chose an atmospheric loop, that we effected slightly (for example, by slowly fading the clip in, to reach a climax at the point of the murder.) This, I believe was effective for our video, and once we had made this decision, Garageband was much easier to use.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in to progression from in to the full product?
At the time we produced the preliminary task, we were unsure of how to use the iMovie software, so by the time we started editing our final piece, we found editing much easier.
Gaining understanding of match on action shots used whilst editing the preliminary task were very helpful when it came to editing the shots of the victim walking along the path in the park and keeping continuity.
I believe that during the course of the production, we learned more techniques in filming, but mostly in editing, as we learned to use an entirely new software, and I believe everything is much more smoothly cut.
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