Thriller - Film

Thriller - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I feel I have come a very long way since the preliminary task ads during that I didn't get much chance to recap on my editing and I also only got a short time using the camera and before this task I had no experience using any professional camera, but I quickly learnt the basics and became comfortable. Also since the preliminary task my editing skills have been enhanced and improved due to the time I spent editing. I definately could do a better job filming and editing a film now than I could before completing this project as I feel a lot more confident with the hardware and the software I have now become more familiar with.

Thriller - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

My group and myself had very little knowdledge with products such as lighting and cameras but now after using them for a period of time we feel very confident and comfortable if we ever used the hardware again. We got very confident using the camera and we took a lot of shots we were very happy with. Also using the tripod to enhance our camera shots. Yet we didn't use manual lighting, we still learnt things about it that we previously didnt know.

With the editing aspect of the product I already had previous experience so I knew what I was doing but still it came very handy as I hadn't used editing software in a long time so I recapped and I feel very confident if I need to use the editing software again. However my partner within my group, Kai had never used editing software previously so I he had the chance to get confident using the software.

Thriller - How did you attract/address your audience?

I believe that the main way we attempted to attract our desired audience was building our film form the feedback we got from our peers and tailored it to their specification. We tried to minimize our flaws that were pointed out by our peers to draw them in more and make them more satisfied with the finished film. This would indeed attract a young audience as we have created and a tailored our film to what they wanted so that age group would be more attracted to our film.

Thriller - Who would be the audience for your media product?

I think the audience for my group and myself's work would be quite a young yet mature audience. I believe this as thrillers are mainly watched by a young adult audience rather than young children or the older generation. I believe that the main range of the audience would be from 15-25 as I believe they would enjoy thrillers more than below or above the range. Also our peers when they gave feedback seemed very positive and they really enjoyed watching our thriller and seeing it progress so my group and myself tried to tailor our project to the feedback we got from a young audience so it is more tailored to suit them. So I believe a young audience could appreciate and get the most out of project.

Thriller - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The type of Media Institution that would be associated with our type of film would be a low budget British film production company. One that specialises within youth and young film makers in an attempt to get young people more exposure for their work. My group and I found 3 potential companies that we think would be suitable for our film.

Guerrilla Films:
Guerrilla Films have a record of distributing over 100 films. This production company is based within London. They specialise in low budget films from Britain and Ireland. There was not much information on their website so we cannot research further but we think that they would be ideal for distributing our film. They have distributed films such as Two Men Went to War (John Henderson, 2002)   http://www.guerilla-films.com/

Suitability Rating: 4

Optimum Releasing:
Optimum Releasing is a well known company that has specialises is distributing films made in the UK, for example The Last Exorcism (Daniel Stamm, 2010). This would be an ideal company as it is very professional and experienced. http://press.optimumreleasing.net/dvds.php

Suitability Rating:3

Veritgo Films:
Vertigo Films is a well know distributing company that has distributed films such as The Football Factory (Nick Love, 2004). However they don't specialise in low budget films so they wouldn't be most suitable option.

Suitability Rating: 3

I personally think the most suitable production company for myself and my groups work would be Guerrilla Films as I think it would be the most beneficial and suitable for our work as they are more involved with youth and first time film makers rather than the other two being more high budget than our film. http://www.vertigofilms.com/

Rating Key: 1 - Weak, 5 - Strong

Thriller - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I personally don't believe that my group and myselfs thriller film represents any particular social group and is doesn't really show any distinctive signs of particular age. If I had to chose an social group it would be youth. This is due to the actors of the film being a young age. But the actors in this film could have been any age at it wouldn't have made a difference. We could claim that the actors being of quite a young age could reprsent youth and innocence of young people and how much more mysterious and dangerous it could be over an older character.

Thriller - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Thriller - Sound Effects (Scrunching Paper)

This is the sound effect myself and my group chose to place into our film when Kai picks up the note and unravels it

Thriller - Sound Effects (Leaves)

These are the leaf crunching sound effects that me and my group chose to place within our thriller opening scene.

Thriller - Music

This is the music me and my group chose to over our thriller opening scene. This is a piano instrumental that fits the video quite well as it is quite slow and mysterious.

Thriller - Final Edit Audience Feedback

Final Edit:

David: The final edit is very good, you have added quite a lot and changed a lot from your first draft and I think you will benefit a lot from doing this.

Guy: The new title screens make that part of the video look a lot less boring and also the sound effects of the scrunching paper and the breaking leaves make the audio throughout the video a lot better.

Thriller - Draft 2 Audience Feedback

Draft 2:

David: I think the title screen at the end that you and your group added has fit in very well and has made the ending of the film a lot better. But the titles which come onto the screen are to bland and could have the font changed or the positioning of them.

Guy: The ending of the film has benefited from the title screen and the audio over it is very effective. But the audio is a bit bland, you could something extra to it such as sound effects it will make a big difference.

Thriller - Final Edit

This my group and myself's final edit for our opening Thriller scene:
The improvements we made to this from our last draft were the titles, we felt they were to bland and simple font but also the placement of the titles was to boring. This is why we decided to move them around. Also we added some sound effects into the clip in time with the footsteps to make our work more realistic.

Thriller - Draft 1 Audience Feedback

Draft 1:

Guy: I like the synchronisation between the audio and the video as some transitions between shots are in time with the piano keys and it adds a very nice affect to the video and adds suspense. But I think that you should add a title screen at the end as I believe you will benefit from it.

David: The audio from the piano music is in time with the switch between shots, this adds suspense to the film. But I think a title screen either at the start or the end would bring a nice affect to the film.

Thriller - Draft 2

This my group and myself's second draft of our thriller.
                  The improvements myself and my group made in this edit was that we decided it would benefit and be more dramatic if we made a title screen at the end of the clip. We thought this was simple yet affect.

Thriller - Titles

Thriller - Draft 1

This is my group and myself's first draft of our thriller film.

Thriller - Location Recce Shots

We chose this location as it is very private, dark and mysterious. Our storyline fit the location perfectly because we believe a dark, secluded path fits the storyline tremendously.

Thriller - Actors

The only two actors involved in our film are myself and Kai. We will both be filming certain parts of the film but also we will each be acting as well.

The 'dead body' (Myself):                                                                        

The protagonist (Kai):

Thriller - Other Task Research

Torn - A Grade:

I chose to evaluate Torn as it got an A grade. This means we can watch and analyse it and hopefully take things from it which make my group and myselfs work better.

Torn has a filter covering the entire film which builds the tension and makes the film more suspense filled and it continuously has flashing images to build tension and scare the audience. The film only contains one character thoughout the whole film and also it was filmed at his house which again makes it very easy to reshoot scenes that aren't up to standard. Also the costume there character is wearing is so casual that it shows the difference between how normal he seems on the outside to how sinister and psychotic he really is. The film had a lot of different shots which keeps the film entertaining and interesting. My group and I are going to try and take all the positives from this film and attempt to adapt it to our own, as this work is an excellent piece and I work would be improved if we aspired to have our film to be as good as Torn.
Ring Of Trees - E Grade:

I chose to evaluate Ring Of Trees as it shows the contrast between the difference between Torn (an A grade) and this film which only got an E. My group and I can evaluate exactly what is wrong with this film and attempt to avoid the same mistakes they did.

With the Ring Of Trees there were clearly a lot more mistakes and less professional than Torn. They placed their titles on a black background which is typically unseen and quite unprofessional compared the typical thriller in which the titles are placed infront of the opening scene, we will avoid doing this is attempt to avoid loosing marks. Their choice of lighting is very poor amongst some scene and it is very clear that they are amateur.

Thriller - Risk Assessment

My group and I have chosen suitable a area to avoid hazards and interuptions with a minimal amount of people as our chosen location is very isolated to the point where we may not be interupted but not so isolated we are dangerously far away from civilisation.

We are filming outdoors so there wont be many objects that may be of threat to us. The largest threat to my group and myself will be tripping over anything lying on the floor or slipping over on the mud or the glass if it start raining during filming or just before hand.

Thriller - Costumes

My group and I decided that for a thriller our characters would need dark clothes to go with the mysterious, dark theme associated with thrillers. An ideal costume for both the dead body and the antagonist who discovers the dead body would be completely black clothing, for example:

This is ideal as thrillers need to be mysterious and dark to create suspense and tension and if our characters were wearing bright fluorescent clothing it would not be suitable for our film what so ever.

Thriller - Filming Schedule

My group and I plan on recording the whole of our short film after college on Wednesday 9th December as this data suits both of our schedules and we will be given the rest of the day from 12pm to until it gets to dark to film.

Thriller - Locations

Location 1: Norfolk Road Recreation Ground or Manor Farm

Location 2: Top of Toton Hill

My group and myself chose Location 2. We chose this location as it was more convenient for us as it is very close to our 6th form. But also because of how private and dark it is, we believed that we could get more out of this location rather than Location 1.

Thriller - Storyboard

My group and I created a storyboard that shows an accurate plan of the filming we intend to do. Our storyboard:

:

Thriller - Questionaire

My group and I created a questionaire which we think is thor enough and given us enough information regarding our project and any improvements we could make to our planning and the storyline we have came up with. Our quesionaire results:

 

This questionaire that myself and kai conducted shows us that a lot of people like films linked with thriller, also it tells us that our story is quite good but we should add a little more to the storyline as what we wrote seems very stale and people believe that more needs to be added to the story to engage people into it more.

Preliminary Video

Preliminary Evaluation

My evaluation of my preliminary task is that overall the task was a success as we achieved all of the requirements in a some what short amount of time and we produced work that I am proud of and that we produced it at a high enough standard to be happy with. Yet we did have a few issues when it came to editing due to sound volume and not being able to go back and shoot the same scene. But we did figure out how to utilise volume within the software which in turn became useful knowledge for future projects if a similar problems occurs. I think there are many strengths and weeknesses within our film. Strengths are the editing and camera angles. I think the camera angles were cleverly chosen to suit the scene as we took time to think about the most appropriate angles for each scene for example the end scene has a low angle to show the characters power. The editing was quite well done as the non-diegetic music matched the film and sound effects were cleverly placed at the right places to ensure the most realism. A weakness was some parts of filming and not watching over clips after    recording them as that would have been a simple solution to the volume problem. But we have learnt from that mistake which may become useful to us in future projects. But the issue was major and didn't severely affect the whole film. All in all the project was a success and it was very good practice for the projects in the future as I have learnt valuable lessons in editing and camera work.

Preliminary Editing

For the editing aspect of the work we used a piece of software called Adobe Premier as it is straight forward for the editing tools we needed for the film. This software allowed us to complete all parts of the task such as the action match as we cut down the footage and appropriately placed them into the correct slots. During filming a piece of dialogue was recorded to quietly which allowed to us to gain more knowledge of volume and the ability to raise volume when certain clips are to quiet for the audience to hear. Getting used to this software is definitely good practice for future projects as I have come to terms with the basics of the software and think I have learnt a lot and gained beneficial experience from this task.

Preliminary Filming

For the filming aspect of the work we used camera in which I had no experience with and due to my role in the film I thought I would not get a chance to use the camera, but due to some scenes not including me I got a chance to gain some experience and knowledge by using the camera even though briefly it was very beneficial and I would feel a lot more comfortable using a camera now after experiencing the basics and could definitely manage my time more easily as I don't need camera experience. I filmed the end scene which only includes one character. We used our time productively as we only had a very short time frame to record the whole film and we recorded scenes several times to minimalise the amount of errors, but we only recorded one mistake when the characters dialogue was to quiet for the audience to hear.

Thriller - Planning

Group: Chris & Kai.

Ideas:

1. A man walking slowly down a long path in dark clothes holding something mysterious.
2. A dead body is found in a field with a cryptic note lying on top of him.

 Final idea: A dead body is found by a man. The body is lying in a field with a uninterruptible note on top of him.

Title: The Enigma

Characters: 
The dead man
The discoverer

Note:
My fun and games have just begun,
The man before you never saw the sun,
In the end he was just another one,
I wonder who will read your message when you're gone.

Plan:
A man is on a walk when he spots a man lying on the floor. He carefully, slowly walks towards the man until he's close enough to realise he's dead. There is a note gripped in the hand of the dead man. The discoverer picks up the note and reads it in his head, and once he finishes the last line the camera catches the killer behind the discoverer.

Preliminary Planning

Preliminary Task:
The task is to create a short film aprroximatwely 30 seconds long that includes atleast two characters, dialgou between the characters and also an action match. This will be done in groups of 3-4.

Protagonist: David Thomas
Antagonist: Chris King
Henchman: Stephanie Hanna
Cameraman: Irenam Mileva

Dialogue:
David: Give me my cat back!
Chris: You'll never get it!
David: I'll kill you!
Chris: I don't believe you
*David shoots Stephanie*
*Chris throws cat*
*David falls back and shoots Chris*   

Storyboard:

  











The story board showcases our initial ideas on what to base our short film on. Having the story board helped us to keep on track with all the shots and certain dialogue as we could base the final filming on the story board. The frames also showed the four aspects of media. For example it showed an example of the shot reverse shot with the frame being split into two equal sides to ensure a straight forward, understandable plan for the film.

Thriller Conventions

What is a thriller

A thriller is a clip that is filled with suspense and creates mystery and keeps the viewer intregued.

What is the aim of opening titles

It is usually a narrative enigma that doesn't give away to much information about the main storyline.

Lost Highway
         Camera: Close up of protagonist smoking a cigarrete at the begining of the scene. This is a good use of camera for a thriller as it shows the typical as it helps shows the mysteriousness of the character as sterotypically sensible people don't usually smoke. The close up allows the viewer to see the emotion of the characters face which include anxiety and worry which implies to us that something is about to go wrong within the scene.

Sound: Within the whole scene there is only one line of dialogue which is coming through the speaker of the apartment. This is used to create a lot of suspense and tention as the viewer is left wondering why its so silent and mysterious.

Editing: There is use of straight cuts within the scene, which are used to show how fast paced the scene is. Also it is used to make the viewer wonder if there is suspsense building up into dramatic which as thrillers typically do keep the viewer on the edge of their seat. There is also use of long takes before it gets more dramatic, which are used to keep as much of the scene as possible uniterupted.

Mise-en-scene: At the beginning of the scene the protagonist is smoking a cigarrete openly around his apartment which may show stress of the character. This helps add to the fact that the scene seems mysterious as we begin to wonder why exactly he is stressed and what he has to be worried about.

Act of Valour
         Camera: At the begining of the scene there a continuous close ups. This is used to show that they're important within the scene. It shows a close up of the writing of someone whilst they're writing it. This shows us that it must have some sort of importance within the scene as it continuously shows a close up of it. This makes suspense right from the start of the film and shows us the mysteriousness of the what the character is writing.

Sound: There is diegtic music playing throughout the scene which is linked with the storyline of the film as the thriller is about the army and war and the diegtic music that is playing is the typical type of music associated with the topic. This is used to help show what the film is about straight away.

Editing: There is continuous dissolves from one camera angle to the other. This is used at the start of the scene when the person is writing something down. This is used to quickly show different things effectively as it stills show mystery and makes the viewer wonder what is going on or what the letter is about.

Mise-en-scene: Once the army soliders jump out of the plan it shows that all of them are wearing the typical outfit for them to wear. This is used to give ideas to what is happening as they jump out of a plane. As there is little build up the scene it is very surprising but we know what is happening though the scenery and the costumes of the characters.

Inception
        Camera: Once the building starts collapsing and the protagonist is running through the rooms, the camera is following him. This is used as a handheld camera technique as it shows how shakey the room is and keeps us intregued as it is action packed and mysterious.

Sound: There is suspense filled dialgoue between the protagonist and the antagonist during the scene when the bring in the hostage. The dialogue is to discuss a very dramatic and serious topic and the non diegtic music to build tension as it is loud and fast paced with makes us wonder what the outcome of the scene will be.

Editing: There is a shot reverse shot between the two antagonists and the protagonist during the part of the scene where the hostage is in the room. This is used to keep displaying all three different perspectives of the situation and show the reactions of each person to what the person previously said to them as it is a very dramatic scene with a lot of tension and wonder.

Mise-en-scene: All the men in the scene are wearing very smart and formal suits and also the women is wearing a glamorous dress, this shows that they all either like to dress smartly or have a reputation to maintain as they are important or have important within the film.

Mission Impossible 2:
             Camera: At the very beginning of the scene the camera zooms into the shot of the protagonist from very far away. This is used to show how high up the character is. Which also shows how dangerous and daring the character is to attempt such a thing. There is suspense as it is very dangerous and we wonder of the charcaters safety.

Sound: We can hear diegtic sounds of the character climbing up the side of the mountain such as the sound of the rocks or him breathing which adds to the suspense of the scene. Also the is non diegtic music that sounds very quiet and relaxing which is confusing as such as dangerous activity could kill the character but he is very calm. This shows we can trust the character and he is comfortable with a dangerous task like the one in the scene.

Editing: There are a lot of long takes within the scene which builds suspense as the scene is broken into seperate clips very often. There is also a shot reverse shot of the protagonoists point of view and a close up of his face. This is used to show his reaction to what he is looking at and how calm he seems is a very dangerous situation.

Mise-en-scene: There are lots of shots of the scenery which reminds us of the dangerous position the character in which keeps adding to the suspense of what could happen to the character if he is not careful. Also he is wearing clothes that are clearly not for relaxing which shows through his appearance that he isn't doing something very relaxing.