Evaluation; Part 7

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

After looking back at my preliminary task, there has definitely been a progression in my skills as a media student; for example I now know a vast range of technologies and devices I can use to better my projects.

In the preliminary task we filmed it all in a school corridor and on a bench outside, the final thriller was filmed in a friends house, behind the school stage and in an empty bathroom. All places which the viewer wouldn't recognise unless they had been to all three locations, which is unlikely as we chose places where many people dont go.

Also after reviewing the preliminary task, we learnt to keep the image centered for the best effect, only the main action is in the frame of the camera, whereas in the preliminary Chloe's hand is visible as she is trying to keep the door open so we could film through it.We also learnt the importance of holding a steady shot and how the use different camera angles can improve and give variety to our thriller, for example I suggested our opening shot be on a 'dutch tilt' to give a disorientated effect which related to the subject. Most importantly, we learnt to control our outbursts of laughter and our focus improved meaning we could film the shots we needed quicker and therefore we had more time for experimenting with different shots we thought of while filming.

Evaluation; Part 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product?

While researching and creating the final thriller, I learnt how to use a wide range of different technologies, some of which I was already  familiar with, and others that I wasn't. Some of the resources I used in the process include; Blogger, YouTube, DV digital camcorders, mobile camera phones, Google, SlideRocket, SurveyMonkey, Wordle, SlideShare, Prezi and PowerPoint.

When researching different thrillers, I looked at the work of previous students work, and also the opening sequences for mainstream thrillers on YouTube to inspire me. I used YouTube to also upload my own footage. I used Blogger regularly to track the progress by posting everything that I have done that has helped me and my group to make our thriller. We  created an account with SurveyMonkey so we could get audience feedback on how we could improve our thriller.

ev on Prezi

Evaluation; Part 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation; Part 4

Who would be the main audience for your media product?

The audience for our thriller would be anyone over the age of 15, as our thriller features violence and possible strong language further on in the film. Young people aged 15 to 20 would be the main age range we would attract to watch our thriller as it is a fast pace revenge story with a femme fatale main character which could be an advantage to attracting a young male audience.
Below I have created a 'wordle' about who the main audience for our thriller would be.

Evaluation; Part 3

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


As our film is a small budget thriller, the likely-hood of a large studio such as The ODEON and Warner Brothers is very slim as our thriller doesn't have a famous actors or a well known director. However a UK based institution, or an Art House exhibition chain such as The Curzon, Everyman or Picture House cinema might pick up our film. Films such as Melancholia and Batman, (one an art house film and one a mainstream) have both distributed their trailers via television and Youtube, before showing trailers in cinemas.

Evaluation; Part 2

Hows does your media product represent particular social groups? (gender, 
age, sexuality, ethnicity etc)

Evaluation; Part 1

evaluation on Prezi

Final Film

Here is our final Thriller opening, called 'Independent Law'.

Blackouts and Gradual Sound

During our thriller opening we used blackouts to create tension and build suspense for the audience. We used one when Shelby walked into the living room and as she switched on the light we made the film black out and combined it with a scream off youtube. 

We also added a further blackout when Shelby went to hit Drilon accompanied with the sound of bone crushing against the wall which we got from a short clip of 'Mr and Mrs' Smith'.

We then gradually faded the music in and faded it out again at certain points for effective use of silence or other sounds.

Gradual sound and a blackout

Blackout

Blackout and scream

Editing

Today we finished editing and reviewed our footage to make sure we hadn't missed anything out. However we had a continuity editing problem. One thing I  noticed was that in one shot, you see Shelby walking over to Drilon from his point of view, but in a later shot shortly after, you see her walking again; making it look like she had walked back on her self. To fix this problem, we cut the second shot so it looks like she am only just coming over to him and it flows much better.

Editing

Today we finished editing and had a look back at all our footage to make sure we hadn't missed anything out or had any continuity editing problems. One thing we did notice was that in one shot, you see Shelby walking over to Drilon from his point of view, but in the a shot shortly afterward, you see Shelby walking again, making it look like she had walked back on myself. To fix this problem, we cut the second shot so it looks like she am only just coming over to him and it flows much better.

Editing

In lesson and any spare time we have, Shelby, Ahmed and I have been adding the final touches to editing our thriller opening. To emphasise the shot of Shelby killing Drilon, we reversed the action and then replayed it the correct way- however after watching it we decided to cut this out. Also to emphasise the sound of the iron pole hitting the floor, we stopped the music just as it was hitting the floor so you can hear the clinking and echos of when it falls. We have also slowed the pace of each shot down to exaggarate the flashback and emphasise the 'normalness' of the shot. 

Analysis of 'Brick' film posters

I found the 2005 film 'Brick' a good example of multiple poster designs. All these designs below feature effective aspects that I would like to incorporate into my own poster design, and that also reflect properties of the thriller genre; some have low level lighting effects, while in a juxtaposition some are bright block colours. The 'colour' of the film 'Brick' is blue as it comes up in many scenes (for example the dead girls bracelets which are featured on poster 2 and his eyes) this is why it's been used in the poster. For my own thriller poster, I think the colour is red, as we have scenes that feature heavily on violence, blood and death- aspects that are usually reflected by the colour red. 

The title is always the largest font used and the font colour always effectively contrasts with the background colour, and is usually used for another piece of text in the poster. These aspects I will incorporate into my own poster. Between Ahmed, Shelby and I, our favourite posters out of the selection below are number 2 and 3.

1

2

3

4

5

Thriller Update

This week during lessons  Shelby, Ahmed and I have been inserting titles into our thriller opening. We included titles such as the names of the actors, director, producer ect. 

Film Posters

I am starting to research film posters for thriller movies. All these examples, 'Shadow of a Doubt', 'A History of Violence' and 'Children of Men' feature low lighting to create shadows across the characters face, creating an air of mystery and suspense which is a factor I will incorporate and develop in my own poster.

To begin with, I will capture film clips from the film or will take new pictures of the main actress, Shelby.

'Shadow of a Doubt'-Hitchcock

'A History of Violence'-David Cronenberg

'Children of Men'- Alfonso Cuaron

Music

After removing the lyrics from the song 'Casual Casualties' by our friend Myth, we were left with a track that was aready on youtube called '"Freedom Fighters" Heavy Angry Gangster Guitar Beat.' I then emailed the owner to ask if we could use their track and they said we could only for non- profit use.

Titles for our Thriller

We have decided to call our thriller 'Independent Law' as this title reflects what the film is about- a rogue police officer who takes the law into her own hands to avenge the murder of her husband.


The name we decided to call our production company is 'SEAscape Productions'. SEA being Shelby,Emma, Ahmed. I thought SEAscape would be a nice name, and when creating the ident, I thought I could incorporate blue into it to reflect the blue of the sea.

Call Sheet

Date	Location	Cast	Crew	Props	Costume
30/1/12	House	Shelby, Ricky	Emma, Ahmed	Keys, wallet, mobile phone, vase, decorative pebbles.	Shelby: black trousers, white shirt, coat,police hat. Ricky: hoodie, trousers.
04/02/12	Gym	Shelby, Drillan	Emma, Ahmed	Chair, handcuffs, rope, iron pole	Shelby: black trousers, white shirt, police hat. Drilon: Shirt and trousers.
08/02/12	Backstage area	Shelby	Emma, Ahmed	Iron pole	Shelby: black trousers, white shirt, police hat.
10/02/12	Backstage area	Shelby	Emma, Ahmed	Black pen	Shelby: Black trousers, white shirt, police hat.

Filming Session 4

Today, we filmed the final scene of Shelby, the police officer, circling the next victims photograph (me!) on the 'Wall of Victims'. Todays shoot only took 4 minutes and we got all the takes we needed. The editing is nearly finished so next we will put the ident that I created and titles onto the complete film sequence, and we have completed our thriller.

Ahmed and I making the board of victims

Filming Session 3

Today we got straight into filming the 'linking' shots. These are the shots that will link Shelby walking down an 'alleyway' -which is in fact a backstage area- into the shots of her walking round the corner ready to murder Drilon.
As a result of consistent filming and regular camera use we have developed when filming for our thriller; the new 'system' we have is that one person, usually Ahmed, sets up the camera and tripod while the I get the actors ready for the shots, this may include make up, hair and costume fixtures while Shelby thinks of ways which to improve the filming. 
The more we film, the less we have to stop due to outbursts of laughter, camera problems and or wardrobe malfunctions, making the filming process easier, quicker and less stressful. 


Tomorrow, we plan on uploading and editing our thriller.

Filming Session 2

On Friday we began to film the main scene of our thriller. Our co-actor Drilon and main actress Shelby spent around half an hour having makeup and fake blood applied by me.
For Drilon's make up we used a lot of fake blood because he was the victim being murdered, a fake wound and Shelby's eye makeup to create a realistic looking  black eye, to make it seem like he had been beaten up. We then used some handcuffs to attach him to a bar that was on the wall, and tied him to a chair with some rope. 
As the policewoman, Shelby's make up was subtle; we used dark eye make up and bloody fingerprints on her face to make it look like she had wiped her face after beating Drilon up. I also applied fake blood onto Shelbys shirt and grabbed her arms and parts of her shirt to make it look like the previous murder victims had grabbed at her frantically.

Once we started filming, the time passed quickly as this time Shelby was more professional and there were less outbursts of laughter and we took less time to shoot each scene. There were less disagreements about where the camera should go, how to move it, where the characters should be positioned and therefore a more productive filming session.

Filming Session 1

Today, me, Shelby and Ahmed met our co-star Ricky, and began filming the first part of our thriller opening sequence. 
We went to Shelbys cousin's house and filmed the protagonist discovering her dead husband's body in their living room. This is going to be used as a 'flashback', when we edit these scenes, so we will make it black an white to make it clear to the viewers that it is not the present.
However, we didn't think that the rooms we filmed in were the right size or what we had in mind so to make sure the opening scene looks as great as it can be, we plan on reshooting the sequence at either mine or Ricky's house this week.

Me and Ahmed setting up the camera.

Ricky being told what position to 'play dead' in.

Me, Ahmed and Ricky. 

Audience Research- Interviews

Here is the video of our audience research.

Music

During class we looked at websites such as Moby Gratis and Sound Cloud to find original, non copyrighted music to use in our thriller, however we couldn't find the right sound so we thought of musicians we know that could help.

After listening to one of our mutual friends original songs, we think that the backing 'beat' would be suitable touse in our thriller. However, because he is rapping/singing over the top, we would have to remove his lyrics to make it fit in. Below is the song 'Casual Casualties' written and performed by our friend Michael aka Mythical.Shelby inboxed Michael on Facebook to ask his permission to use his work.

Audience Research

On Wednesday evening we planned to go to the local cinema to interview cinema go-ers and staff what they think makes a good thriller, what they like about thrillers and why.

We chose Wednesday because alot of people go on that day for the Orange Wednesday 2 for 1 offer, and evening because thats when people arn't at work or school and want to go out and socialise. We hoped to get a large variety of age groups to interview so we would have a wide range of information.

However, we realised we could only go during the day with our camera and equipment, plus we had all made seperate plans for that evening, so we chose to interview people in our school which would still give us a great range of people, and teenagers are the most frequent cinema visitors.

We chose to ask fellow students at school what they like and look for in a good thriller.
The questions we asked were:

• What is your favourite genre of film?
• What is your favourite thriller?
• What do you look for in a thriller?
• What was the most recent thriller you watched?
• Did you enjoy it? Why?

Researching Title Sequences

Looking at other film title sequences and television series, we noticed that the order of which the certain job titles appear, is more or less the same:
"_____" Presents
A "_____" film
Names of the main actors/actresses
Edited by"____"
Music by "____"
Costumes Designed by "____"
Producer(s) "___"
Director(s) "___"
Film Title

The opening titles of the film Se7en, In The Cut, Panic Room and many others all follow the same trend.

Cast and Crew

Cast
Police woman - Shelby-Jane
Murdered Husband - Ricky Brigden
Victim 1 - Drillan
Victim 2 - Emma Sofianou (Me)

Crew

Directors - Ahmed and Myself
Producers - Ahmed, Myself and Shelby
Cameramen - Ahmed, Myself and Shelby
Costume/Make up - Shelby and Myself
Scriptwriters - Ahmed, Shelby and Myself

Target Audience Research

Our target audience would be for teenagers 15+ as they are the age range of the people that visit the cinema most often. So to find out what our target audience enjoy about thrillers and why they watch them, we created a survey on SurveyMonkey and asked friends and family to complete it. We also advertised our suvey on social networking sites like Facebook and Tumblr so we get more results.