Evaluation - Question 8: Improvements from Prelim to now

We have mad many improvements from our prelim to our final opening. One being the sound. We put a lot more thought and effort into the sound and took more time comparing different sounds to see what would be more effective.

As well as sound, our mise en scene was more realistic. We thought about the representation of the characters this time round and what would make them more effective.

The editing of our prelim was not as clean cut as our final thriller. This was because we was not as experienced because it was early on in the project. Having the experience is key to make the opening successful because it will look more professional.

Our location added to the effect and made it more successful than our prelim. For our prelim, we used a almost deserted staircase in college. It was not the best place we could have had it and we know now that the location can really effect the outcome of your film.

Overall, our final opening was a lot more successful than our prelim because we took more time to really think think about the elements and we were all more experienced with the technologies required.

Evaluation - Question 7: Technologies used

Other elements we used that are not featured in my short documentary are:

The cameras: Video and Still, they played a key part when we were planning and, obviously, when we were filming the footage.

Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro and Livetype is what made our opening real. We used these to edit all footage, create music and the titles.

Evaluation - Question 6: Audience Feedback (part 3)

Audience feedback after watching our opening on the Big Screen!




After we watched all the thriller openings at the cinema, I got feedback from some of the audience to see what they thought.

Evaluation - Question 2: Representation (part 2)

Representation!

This part of representation is all about the lighting, editing, sound and camera. All of theses elements help represent a thriller title sequence. How you edit, use lighting, position the camera and create a sound track can distinguish between the sub-genres. The sub-genre of our thriller opening is Psychological, meaning that however we edit and the sounds that we use need to accurately represent that.

THE EDITING!

Our opening needed to represent that of a psychological thriller. So, for the editing of our footage, we focused on making the flashbacks more dramatic and used different effects to almost mess with the mind.

Here is footage of the final flashback in our opening. By including a 'blinking' effect, we get the impression that the character (victim) is scared and at the beginning is not really clear of her surroundings.

We used this effect for all the flashbacks because we felt that it would show that Ben's character was confused and that something was messing with his mind. It also represented psychological thriller because we focused on showing something 'messing' with the characters mind.

THE LIGHTING!


On the day that we filmed the main footage, it was quite bright and almost sunny, which went well with the idea of Ben's character waking up the morning after killing someone.  Before the flashbacks were turned black and white, the lighting was quite dark as it was meant to be a night. This is representing that murder is committed at night and the murderer remembers in the morning.

Evaluation - Question 3: Target Audience

Target Audience!

Contents of the bag of a member of our target audience.

These are some of the typical things you might find in the bag of a member if our target audience.

For example:

Danny, 24, graduated from university. Works for a Law firm. Intelligent. Generally spends nights and other free time working on cases. Goes to the cinema every other Saturday to take a break from work and catch up with friends.

Evaluation - Question 6: Audience Feedback (part 2)

Feedback from the audience after the video was uploaded to Facebook!

After posting our film on Facebook, people started to like the opening.

Comments from friends after they watched my group's opening. The first person, a male, is 17 - nearly 18, the same age as me. The second comment is from a guy that is 2 or 3 years younger than me.

This is a comment from Eleni, another 17 year old. She was also creating a thriller opening.

This last comment is from a boy who is 3 or 4 years younger than myself. This proves that, as it has been put on Facebook, a wide age range can experience the opening.

Evaluation - Questions 4&5: What Media institutions might distribute your media? How will you address your target audience? (Part 2)

Addressing the Target Audience!

The target audience for any film can be addressed through many different ways:

• Cinema Screening (local independent cinema)
• Through Youtube
• Through Vimeo
• Through Blogger
• Through Facebook
• Through Mobile phone devices
• Through the 200 DvD releases

By using these forms to address a particular audience, people who wouldn't necessarily watch this type of film also get to experience it. By uploading to Facebook or Youtube, a wider audience will be able to see the film and possibly want to watch more. 

This is a screen shot from my Facebook. I uploaded it so all my friends on there could watch it. The people on my Facebook range in ages so this film can be watched by a very wide audience. Eventually, our film could find its way on to Youtube.

Evaluation - Questions 4&5: What Media institutions might distribute your media? How will you address your target audience? (part 1)

Media Institutions!

The media institutions that might distribute my media film is Candi Studios. Candi Studios is a small, independent studio with excellent equipment but low production budgets. As well as that, you might have created your own production company too:

In association with...

• G26 Productions
• Orange Media
• Candi Studios

This is a screen shot of 'Candi Studios', the company we chose to distribute our films.

Two of the five groups decided to use Candi Studios as their production company. The other three, my group included, chose to create our own production company. 

G26 Productions is our production company. Personally, I think that choosing to create our own production company is more effective because it gives a unique feel to it. Being produced by a new company that no one else has worked with will make the film new and exciting.

Evaluation - Question 2: Representation (part 1)

Character Representation!

A character should:

• Deal in stereotypes
• Exaggerations and generalisations
• Useful for the audience to recognise
• all media representations are CONSTRUCTS - there are choices about costume, mise en scene, make-up, camera angle, position in the frame, lighting, sound track and editing.

After looking at many different movies and looking at the detail put in to ensure each character is distinguished, we chose the costumes for our characters.

Ben's costume consisted of:

• thick, outdoor jacket
• plain white, long-sleeved shirt
• black balaclava 
• black gloves
• black trousers
• thick, outdoor boots

Each element of the costume was chosen to accurately portray that of a typical kidnapper/murderer.

       

My costume consisted of:

• low cut, black top 
• short, grey skirt
• dark grey tights
• black boots

Each element of my costume was chosen to portray a typical victim. I wanted to show that, before she had died, she was a vulnerable girl. 

Evaluation - Question 1: Forms and Conventions of real Thriller openings (part 3)

Typical camera shots!

In 'Memento' we are not introduced to the main character by a close-up of his face, but by a close-up of his hand. This makes you think "who is that?" "what's going to happen?" It's a good way to automatically bring suspense.

After the titles to 'What Lies Beneath', we are introduced to the main character straight away by a close-up of her face. We are immediately drawn to her so we know we have to follow her story throughout the film.

In our thriller opening, we have taken both ideas from  'Memento' and 'What Lies Beneath' to introduce the main character. First we used 'Memento's' idea of a close-up of Ben's hand. 

We then had a close-up of Ben's eyes, using the idea of a close-up of the face from 'What Lies Beneath'. 

Evaluation - Question 1: Forms and Conventions of real Thriller openings (part 2)

Might introduce key characters!

This is the first actor mentioned in the opening. Guy Pearce plays the protagonist in 'Memento', naturally, it is his name at the top of the list of actors.

Carrie-Anne Moss plays the character of Natalie in the film. Her name comes after the protagonists name. Although she does play a big part in the storyline, she is not as important.

Joe Pantoliano is the third most important character. He is also quite a big character in the movie but, again, is not as important as the other two, therefore his name comes last in the list of key actors.

Of these three main actors, only Guy Pearce (the protagonist) is actually featured in the opening to this movie. The back of Joe Pantoliano's head is right at the end of the opening. The fact that the opening only features the protagonist outlines just how important he is.

However, in 'What Lies Beneath' none of the titles include actors names. We are introduced to the protagonist straight after the titles, so we then know that Michelle Pfeiffer will be starring in the movies. 

Our introduction to actors and characters started with "Starring Ben Bezzina". We started with Ben because his character was more dominant than mine, therefore his name came first.

Although my character was not dominant, she was still a key character.

Evaluation - Question 1: Forms and Conventions of real Thriller openings (part 1)

USING THE SAME FONT THROUGHOUT THE OPENING!

This is one of the titles from 'What Lies Beneath' - one of the thrillers we studied. The font used for this particular title was used throughout the opening.

Although the picture is not completely clear, you can make out that the font used for the above title, was also used for the title of the actual movie. 

This is a title from the film 'Memento'. Again, this font type is used throughout the opening.

Like in 'What Lies Beneath', this film not only uses the same font for all the titles, it also uses it for the actual title.

After looking at the above two films, we decided to follow tradition and use the same font throughout. We used it for the particular job and the name that went with it.

We agreed that it would be more affective to use the same font because it may have been confusing to have all different fonts announcing different titles.

Finally, we decided to keep the title as the same font because it will fit in with the feel of the movie.

Evaluation - Question 6: Audience Feedback

After collecting audience feedback from our class members, we created this image on Wordle.net using words that they had used when giving feedback about our thriller.

Our Final Thriller Opening

Here is the final, finished version of our thriller opening title sequence.

Creating the Soundtrack

After posting the rough cut, myself and Sebastian started creating the soundtrack whilst Ben and Rebecca started on re-editing our footage.

We experimented with different sounds to find the right ones to fit in with our footage. As Ben and Rebecca were re-editing our footage, we had to use our rough cut to create the soundtrack. We decided that we would create the soundtrack and then add in the edited footage after. This would mean that we would have to re-edit the soundtrack to fit with the new footage. 

These two photos are of our experimentation with possible sounds.

Once we had found the right sounds for our footage, we found where exactly on the opening it needed to go. We added the sounds of a gun being loaded and a gun shot to the ending of our footage. We also included a heartbeat to portray the victims fear.

We chose to have two main sounds for throughout the opening. The first being the sound of wildlife, birds, leaves, the breeze etc. We did this because we thought it would accurately give the affect of  the morning. the second sound was a that of a bass guitar. We used this for the flashbacks to give then more importance. We cut the sound of the wildlife whilst the beat of the bass was playing. Then we quietened the bass and played the quieter version throughout the rest of the soundtrack, only cutting it to play the louder one.  We still had the wildlife sound playing at the same time as the quieter bass.

Making the Titles

As our rough cut didn't have its titles, me and Sebastian started to create the titles. We used LiveType to do it. 

The title of our film is 'Victim'. We found the right font to portray the thriller element and the right effect to create the thriller feel.

'Directed by...' It is crucial to have who it is directed by because the audience will want to know if it has been directed by a famous directed or one who is just starting out.

It is important to have who is starring in the film because it will attract more people if they know a hotshot actor or actress is in it. in this case Ben is one of the stars and myself is another.

There are many more titles and certain orders in which to add them.

Rough Cut Evaluation

Finally our rough cut is finished. We have, as accurately as possible, made an outline of shots for our Thriller opening.

We had a range of shots including close-ups and long shots. We used these shot for different aspects of the opening. We had both close-ups and long shots of the scenery.

We made the decision to have the main footage in normal colour as it is what the character is seeing then and there. 

We chose to have the flashbacks in black and white because it would distinguish between what had already happened and what was happening then.

Shot of Ben buttoning up his shirt in one of the flashbacks.

Another flashback image of Ben, this time zipping his jacket.

Flashback image again. Putting on his gloves to go and find his prey.

Another flashback image. Ben in examining his knife before going to find his victim.

This is one of the images of Ben just after he had a flashback. In the background, you can see his victim (me) on the grass.

Overall, our Rough cut has been successful in terms of connecting all the footage together. However, we have gone over on our allocated time (2 minutes) by 45 seconds. As a group, we established which shots were too long and we have decided how long to cut each one down by.

Rough Cut

Here is the first rough cut for our thriller, without sound or titles.

Editing the footage

To create our opening, we had to edit all the footage together. For this we used Final Cut pro.

We chose the best clips and viewed them in one of the windows. We had to cut majority of the footage out because we only hve two minutes for our opening.

Once each clip had been shortened,  we dragged them so they were linked together. This created a a flow of the footage.