Evaluation

Questions 1 - 4
http://prezi.com/zmitlqm4ea4y/as-media-evaluation/

AS Media Evaluation on Prezi

Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

The media product that we have created attracted the audience by giving them things that they can connect with for example the murders were set in a family home and the murder killed a family therefore everyone who watches this can relate to it imaging it was their family. Also, the fact that it’s set in as family home creates a link between the audience and the film because if it was set in a weird location where no one really goes in everyday life then it wouldn’t be as strong of a link.

Question 6

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

After doing my preliminary tasks and my final task, the stages that I went through gave me many new technologies to look at, the main ones are the camera and the program we edited on. I learnt a lot of new things when doing these projects; I learnt how to do several different editing skills such as how to separate one clip into two, how to speed up a several clips at one time and how to add text to a clip. After I learnt how to do these skills I felt a lot more confident in editing therefore adding more and making the opening scene a lot more professional.


Question 7
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QUESTION 7 on Prezi

Final Filming - Yesterday

I'm happy with the final editing, I think it has come a lot further than it was on the first draft. I think this is mainly because the filming meets with the conventions of a Thriller a lot more than it did in the first draft, especially the small cuts and close up shots on the face. Although, I also think it breaks the conventions of a Thriller for example how the killer (Lauren Gavagan) is wearing casual clothing, usually the killer wears black formal clothing and gloves, but the fact the the killer is wearing casual clothes gives the impression that she doesn't care which adds to the tension.

Media Draft edit

Editing

We took it in turns to edit small bits, we also all worked together so that if any of us didn't know how to do something and another person did it was quicker than having to figure it out by ourselves. We used the programme Adobe Premier Pro, it was rather complecated to use, but after we got used to it, the simple things were easy to do. When it came to doing harder things we had to ask Mr. Turner to come and help us, after he showed us what to do we would practise it so we would be able to do it without his help.

Filming

Before we began filming we created a filming schedule, so everyone in our group would be able to have a turn with the camera. This is the filming schedule:

Monday 27th Feb
Katie Morrice: Scenes 1-5
Lauren Gavagan: Scenes 6-7
Katie Morrice: Scene 8
Wednesday 29th Feb
Charlotte Tomlinson: Scenes 9-13
Lauren Gavagan: Scene 14
Charlotte Tomlinson: Scene 15
Thursday 1st March
Charlotte Hunter: Scenes 16-20
Charlotte Tomlinson: Scenes 21-23
Charlotte Hunter: 24

In total I filmed about 7 scenes; I found that these scenes weren't hard to shoot because they were mainly filming of the corpses. I found it difficult to use the handheld camera because the angles that I was originally meant to shoot were hard to keep balance, therefore we had to change the angles, e.g. when Charlotte Kirk is dead on the floor I was originally meant to climb over the breakfast bar so it was almost like a bird's eye view shot, I was unable to do this because what I was climbing on wasn't stable enough for me to hold the camera steady.

This is a photo of Charlotte Kirk,
who plays the first dead corpse.

This is a photo of Lauren Gavagan,
who plays the murderer.

This is a photo of the make-up being
applied to Charlotte Hunter

This is a photo of Charlotte Hunter who plays the
second corpse in the opening scene.

Planning

Planning

Costume

We spent a while on our planning and thought about it in great detail, we threw our ideas out and pieced a bit of everyones into the final thing. We decided on doing a Action/Adventure Thriller, but then we decided that Horror would fit better with the ideas that we had thought of. We chose to use Charlotte Hunters house because it will fit in a lot better with the 'vintage' and 'scary' look than anyboy elses' houses.

This is what the actor of the daughter
that gets hung shall be wearing in the
filming of our opening scene. The
second photograph is what the Father
will be wearing while he is in the bath
drowning. The next picture downwards
is what the murderer shall be wearing
in the filming of it which will be dark
clothing to attempt to hide the face and
identity of them. The last photograph
on this row is the Mother and the main
piece of clothing that she shall be wearing
is the apron seeing as she is in the kitchen.




































Storyboard

These four images are of the
storyboards that we created,
they are step-by-step in as much
detail as possible, the reason why
it took up so many sheets. We
have put the whole of the opening
scene that we will be making onto paper.






























Risk Assesment

This is the Risk assessment sheet
that we have created, it includes 5
risk assessments that we will have
to test and ensure that it is a safe
environment for our actors to act in.
These include, crossing the road,
stabbing needles into a voodoo doll,
the actress standing on the table in a
noose, going up the stairs and the body
in the bath underwater. The highlighted
words at the bottom on the page are
what people need to buy or obtain for filming.






Props

These consist of:

Rope: This prop will be used for scene
three where Charlotte Hunter has been
hung of the chandelier.


Fake Blood: This will be used in scene
2 where the Mother has been stabbed to death.


Face Paint: This prop will be used to make the actors that
are dead to look a lot more realistic.


Ribbon: This is being used to tie around Charlotte's hand so
she can still hold the teddy bear.


Teddy bear: What Charlotte holds onto when she's dead.

 

This is our mindmap
that we have created,
we wrote down everybodys
ideas and made it into a clear
map of our thoughts.









Locations

Scene 1 shall be filmed
here because I think this
fits the 'Horror House' idea
because if its filmed in a
darker light then it may
look better. But it also fits
with what we wanted
because it gives the
'creepy' feeling.





This will be the location
for scene two, the kitchen
scene where the audience
will find one of the actors
stabbed to death with the
murderer viewing it all.

This is the third scene, the dining room.
Charlotte Hunter (in our group) will be
hung from the chandelier, dead.
The murderer will have moved into
this room with the camera from the kitchen.

This is the fourth scene in the bathroom where the

Dad of the family is being drowned and the murderer

ensures he is properly dead.

Research for Main Task

Films and the Conventions of Opening Sequences

The opening scene of 'Inception' starts with a pan of the sea going down to the beach where the actor is, they have also slowed the speed of the waves down, this implies to the audience that this film isn't going to be masses of chases and riots it'll be more cunning and confusing. The camera then zooms into the actor and then a long shot from where the actor is lying to see two children playing, this makes the audience more confused because it's an odd situation to be in. There's then an over-the-shoulder shot showing him being nudged by a soldier with a gun, this makes the audience wonder what's happening and where he is because the opening scene has just started with slow, calming waves to the actor being almost threatened with a gun. The lighting that is used it bright because it's filmed on a beach, this adds to the confusion because the actor is fully clothed lying in the ocean while being threatened by a soldier with a gun. At the beginning of the clip the sound of the crashing and spraying of waves, it then calms down and becomes a trickling sound, and the audience can hear children's voices like they're playing, there's also a faint piano piece being played in the background, this music isn't fitting with the scenes because the piano piece fits with the children playing, but not with the grown man, fully clothed, knocked out on the shore. The cuts are fairly fast but not as fast as a traditional thriller, but when the actor sees the children the cuts are fast, this is to show that they are in his mind, therefore implying how long he has been 'stranded'. The opening scene for 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' has a lot of fast cuts and flashing images to show only small amounts of images at certain times, it implies to the audience that it's a fast past film, and will play with their mind causing them to question what they've seen and whether they've seen it. In nearly all of the cuts, the object that is being filmed the camera 'pans right' not showing all of the object therefore creating a mysterious feel to the opening sequence. The music is definitely not a traditional thriller theme music, it's mostly drums played in a 'rock' genre, this shows the audience that it's not traditional, therefore they need to watch out for a twist that they won't expect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VXkUzf1et4
Print screen of opening scene of 'Inception' (2010)
Directored by Christopher Nolan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVLJkIZvFlo

Print screen of opening scene of 'The Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo' (2011) Directored by David Fincher

Genre and the Industry

‘Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film and television which creates suspense, tension and excitement; they are the main elements of a Thriller. 'Thrillers usually have it filmed from the killer point of view, if not then the killer or ‘villain’ will be unknown until the very end of the film, but are usually in the film a lot throughout it but aren’t a suspect at all, therefore the audience won’t guess that it’s them that has committed the crime. Now Thrillers are extremely popular in the film industry people usually suspect the dodgy person who isn’t a suspect, so film makers are having to think of new ways to play with people’s minds making them not suspect the obvious.

The main businesses of cinematography are in the United States, Nigeria, Hong Kong and India. Many of the film industries film in other countries and places than where the film is placed, for example if a film took place in New York they would try to find somewhere extremely similar to New York so they don't have to pay as much as they would if they had to shut New York down for a day or two. Many films are filmed in Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand or in Eastern European countries. The early thrillers came around in the 1920's - 1930's these consisted of  Alfred Hitchcock, his films were 'whodunit' films. He began his career with his first silent film 'The Lodger' in 1926, this was the story of Jack the Ripper followed by his next thriller 'Blackmail', his first sound film which was released in 1929. Thrillers have changed throughout the years, not only the types of stories, but the villains and heroes have also. The traditional set up of the 'damsel - in - distress' has changed dramatically, many of the heroes are women now such as Angelina Jolie in 'Salt' and 'Tomb Raider' they are great examples because Angelina manages to do everything a man traditionally does in thriller films such as, jumping off high buildings, shooting several different guns and defeating many villains at one time. There are different types of thrillers, one sub-genre is a 'Psychological Thriller' which has heavy focus on the characters but still incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre, it often overlaps with the horror genre depending on the film. A 'Political Thriller' is a thriller that is set in a political power struggle, they usually include international political scenarios such as Political Corruption, Terrorism and Warfare. This sub-genre tends to involve several extra-legal plots, these are designed to give political power to someone while the opponent(s) try to stop them. Spy thrillers are extremely popular at this time with films such as, 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'(2011) and 'Hanna'(2011). This sub-genre deals with fictional espionage, in either a realistic way or fantasy based; it’s a significant aspect of British cinema. Spy films usually include activities of government agents and their risk of being discovered by their enemies. They’re a combination of exciting escapisms, technological thrills, and exotic locales, the spy film genre combines the action and science fiction genres.

According www.imdb.com the best thriller 'of all time' is 'Pulp Fiction', which was released in 1994 and on average was rated 8.9 for it being the best. This story consists of the lives of two mob hit-men, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption, this would be classed as a Crime Thriller. Crime thrillers offer a suspenseful account of a successful or failed crime/s, the villains are usually successfully caught and either killed or put away. These films usually focus from the criminal's perspective, rather than the policeman, but now thrillers are changing the people who are focused on are changing also. Crime thrillers more than likely include serial killers/murderers, robberies, chases, shootouts and double-crosses. The second best thriller is 'The Dark Knight', this was released 2008 and was rated 8.8. This is a story about Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent who are forced to deal with the chaos unleashed by a terrorist mastermind known only as 'The Joker', as he drives each of them to their limits. This film would be classed as a Supernatural Thriller which brings in a mystical element mixed with tension, suspense and plot twists, more than likely the villain/hero has super-powers or is classed as a 'superhero'.

Questionnaire

1) How old are you?

12-18

19-25

26-32    

33-39    

40+   

         

2) What is your favourite form of thriller?

Just a basic thriller

Horror Thiller

Action thriller

Comedy Thriller

Sci-fi Thriller

Political thriller

Other

3) What do you find appealing about a thriller?

The characters

The story

The fear and tension generated

Other              

4) Which do you think is the most important convention of a thriller?

Story

Introduction

Characters

Other   

5) At which point in the introduction do you think the title of the film should be displayed?

Right at the start

During the credits

Right at the end               

6) What in the opening scene would make you want to continue watching the film?

     ________________________ 

Thank you

Final Preliminary Task

Preliminary Process

PLANNING
In Media, I am doing the Preliminary task, this is a 30 second film that has to contain several technical codes, such as match on action, shot-reverse-shot and the 180ᵒ rule. It also has to include a certain character opening a door and viewing it from outside the room and then inside; crossing a room and sitting down opposite another character and 4 lines of dialog. We chose the groups that we were put in and I felt that we worked fairly well together; at the beginning of the task before planning we shared our ideas and pieced them together - the final idea had a part of everyone's idea in it. We then decided to create our storyboard, to make it fair we all had a turn of drawing two of the scenes. After that we wrote down the dialog, I found this rather difficult because I feel that in this specific idea that we had it would've suited it better if we had no dialog, unfortunately we had to include it.(23/01/12)

Dialogue

"What is wrong?"

"What's that?"

"You're next?"

"What have you done!?"





STORYBOARD

FILMING

After we had finalised our idea we began filming, we used several techniques to dim the lighting and make it brighter with only the use of sunlight, at the start of filming we found the lack of artificial light a slight problem as it was hard to see the characters faces and actions, therefore we opened the blinds slightly and throughout filming opened them according to how we needed the light to be in that specific scene; not only did we use the blinds to adjust the  light, we used reflectors and diffusors. Although, we know how the camera works we couldn't use the camera as we didn't have enough people in the group to swap the role, in the main task we will be rotating the role of the camera so everyone in the group has an equal share therefore getting the grades we desire. Our group found it fairly stressful at the beginning, but I believe that this is only because it was a new experience for all of us. When we got into the roles and knew what we were doing we found it easier to focus.

EDITING

I found the editing enjoyable because it was a time in the project where everyone could discuss and have a laugh with how things are looking. We have included audio transitions, video transitions and our own images such as the title screen below. One of my main roles in the editing was choosing the background music and the end sound for the film, I found the songs and uploaded them to Adobe Premier Pro. We all took turns in the editing process, I had to make the title screen and do a lot of the transitions.

A print-screen of the editing process