Evaluation Question1: In what ways does your media project, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Whilst creating our thriller opening we followed the conventional running order of the title sequence. 

Firstly we started with the ident, the ident shows the production company with their personal logo. Like shown in 'The Stepfather and 'Victim'. Both of these idents have a similar, colour scheme; idents make be designed considering the connotations, connotations which reflect the film that's about to be screened, here the colour scheme and shape of the logo for 'Screen Gems" connotes blood being splattered, which is reflective of a thriller genre. The ident is the first impression so it's clever to hint a theme to the rest of the film.

Once the ident has been shown the production company is shown again, in step father they showed the company on top an establishing shot of a suburban house, this informs the audience of the first location. Whereas in our one we done it on top of trees, we decided we wanted to be a little more discrete and leave the audience guessing the location.

After presenting the companies and associations, it's conventional of title sequences to show the stars therefore we followed this convention. We decided to put the star name on a cinematic view of the setting, as it's clear and the audience can read the name without difficulty and also it situates a location.

After the stars are shown then comes the names of the casting directors and music, then title. In 'The Stepfather', they show these names whilst the main character is carrying out he's routine, this introduces us to the character and hints a narrative. Wherear we mainly edited the titles upon footage of the surrounds, we done this intentionally therefore, we would leave the audience in suspense and be a little more discrete. The way we edited our title sequence suits our sub genre 'psychological', as it's leaving the audience anticipating and thinking about what's going on in our location.

The title: 

We used 'What lies Beneath' for inspiration for our title, as the title is reflective of what's about to happen, the effect they used associated with water, and in the opening the women opens her eyes from being under water. Our title we wanted to reflect the internal state of our main character and the editing rather than the visual aspect, there for we added a flickering effect to represent our main characters blurred memory and the flashbacks in the editing.

We used this shot from 'What lies Beneath' as inspiration for our thriller opening, at first we could only see her eyes, this left the audience wonder for a split second, who could that be? the fact the audience are left waiting for the reveal, makes them use there heads, and also shock them when they find out the character.

Momento was the largest inspiration for our narrative as it's a psychological thriller, and we also was influenced by there choice of editing skills, for example whilst telling the past, they would use a black and white filter we also done this in the flashbacks to separate the past from the present, also to represent our characters memory being in 'black and white' simple dark hazy memories.

Evaluation question8: Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

This starts with a shot from the prelim, we change the focus and position the camera in a low angle shoot, the angle connotes he is the powerful character. In the second scene from our final thriller we wanted to represent the character as the dominate male, but also make his identity a mystery. Since making the prelim we'd had improved on editing, although we use a similar camera angle, we edited the scene to make it more suspenseful through the use of music, and also dim lighting hiding identity and making the male figure more intimidating. In the prelim, we never had a choice of costume, yet in the final project we were able to add to the mis en scene by dressing our character in dark clothing, to represent him as the villain.
Here is an example of a cut shot. In the prelim stage we was less experienced with editing cut shots together, in our actual thriller opening we were more experimental with, editing cut shots as we went from a long shot cutting to a close up of the gun, whereas in the prelim it was more simple working with mid shots, and using a door. Recording the footage where you plan to make cuts are difficult, as you have to find positions which will work well for continuing, whilst filming the footage we plan to insert cuts, we had to position the camera in a way we felt would work well, this was difficult as we reverse angles and went from a long shot to a close up of the gun being picked up. We also used 3 angles to add a sense of realism for the audience, they are able to watch and feel like they can see what's happening from each perspective.




Feedback: The feedback was a a useful way of self evaluating our work, because once you've spent so long editing a product it's easy to become bias and becomes harder to see minor fault. Feedback allowed criticism which informs us of aspects to consider whilst editing/filming in the future:

Evidence of feed back:

Evaluation Question7: What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product ?

Evaluation Question6: Audience Feedback

On the 5th of April we showcase our Thriller opening at The Screen On The Green cinema in angle, where other students and teachers were able to see our opening. Once 'Victim' finished screening, there was an uplift of applause, and a warm response. The screening allowed us to get audience feed back therefore, we video the feedback of those who watched 'Victim' in the cinema. People interviewed: Jerome Holder, Samir Tildi, Dan Lowe, Valeza Bakoli, Gem Omer and Ryan Cameron.

We also used The networking site Facebook to distribute our thriller opening and posted it as a video for friends and family to enjoy and comment some of the comment which we received on Facebook:

 The feedback allows us to get and insight, on what worked well and which, causes most suspense and entertains our audience the most. I find the feedback useful for self evaluating and learning how to improve.

Evaluation Question4&5: Which kind of media institute will distribute your media product and why ? How will you attract and address your target audience ?

Example of a student film which was distributed through the internet:

These student our one of many, which decided to distribute their thriller through youtube. There number of hits are continuing to increase and feedback is also being uploaded daily. By distributing work on youtube, opportunities are opened as you can be entered in competitions associated with film making on youtube also it is a learning process and its a method of distributions professional companies have started to use globally.

Evaluation Question3: Who would be the audience for our media product.

Throughout the research process, we looked at target audience and discovered the majority of those who watch thrillers are male, yet we decided we never wanted to be bias and attract just one type of audience, therefore we included different sex characters, men and women can both identify with. We wanted to make our audience broad, but we also thought about what kind of characters would make up the majority of 'Victims' audience.

The title of our film being called 'Victim' and the genre Psychological Thriller, appeals mostly to a male in the age range 20-40. We considered the connotations of victim, yet we wanted to add a twist, we included a female character, which appeals to both genders, also the fact it's psychological and has violence in appeals mainly to men from their 20's upwards.

Name: Tom
Age: 36
Occupation: Technician
Hobbies: football, pub quiz's, golf, sudoku, travelling.

This is our typical audience, a man who is intellectual, who enjoys using his brain, and is amused by action/horrors/thrillers. His ideal film would include all these combined, therefore our thriller would be perfect movie choice for him. He usually watches films, which leave him thinking, a film which is a conversation starter, he is most likely to watch films with his work colleagues and friends.

 

Things Tom owns:

Evaluation Question2: How does your media product represent particular social group?

Representation is shown through different factors, such as costume, make up, lighting and even camera shots, for example an angle which aims down at a character can symbolise how their character is weak, whilst making our psychological thriller opening we wanted to give the audience the impression that the actually murderer is the victim, therefor through the use of camera shots and mis en scene we done so.  'Victim' Opening title sequence challenges the conventional representation of a victim, and confuses the audience at the beginning. 

Victim:

The Mis en scene in this footage shows, a man laying in the middle of no where, looking rough with blood stains on his shirt and a confused facial expression. The Mis en scene suggest he is vulnerable, and has been hurt. The angel of the camera is looking down on him, which represents weakness, like someone has been looking down on him. Our representation of the murderer in the opening challenges the typical masculine murderer, which would be in control, organised, butch and possible in disguised, the fact the character doesn't represent the typical victim confuses the audience when his real identity is revealed and he is in fact the murderer.

Representation of a typical victim: Covered in blood, shown to be powerless usually is a women.

Here we use the typical representation of a victim, we choose to have a women as the victim character, as they tend to be more vulnerable, the audience can identify this character is the victim, as her body is limp, and she's also smothered in blood, the make up gives the impression she has been harmed.

Representation of murderers:

Clothes are dark.

The body is well covered

Face is hidden. 
Gloves.
Mis en scene, usually discrete shots, revealing little to keep audience in suspense, dark lighting, angles which make them dominate e.g. 
low angle shots looking up. 




        

In the flash backs, we made the characters role more obvious, we dressed the character in clothes which portray a murderer or someone with a hidden agenda. The face is covered with a balaclava, and he is head to toe in black. Props also add to how the character is represented, a shot with the character with a knife is show, therefore the character can identify the character is shady. The character wears gloves, this can be linked to other films wear gloves are used to protect identity.

In our opening we consider the importance of representation, as the audience identify and initially judge the character based on their costume and mis en scene. We used mis en scene and camera angles, to represent our murderer first of all as a victim, this is what makes our opening an psychological thriller, from the start, instantly our audience realise they have to be cunning throughout the rest of the film, once the actually victim is revealed.

Inspiration for our characters: The lead character in 'Momento' we used as our inspiration for our main character, as he looks like an average man, this makes the audience not suspect he has hidden secrets, we wanted to do this in our one, therefore we dressed him up like an average working man, yet made him look like a victim with blood. 


For the flashbacks we used our own sterotype of a villain to produce the costume for our character, yet we looked at some horrors like 'Jason' and saw he had his face covered therefore, we thought it be smart to keep our character fully covered in the flashbacks which creates more suspense.

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.

Evaluation of Sounds

The sound track, was an overall success we used two programs to complete the final sound track, Logic Express and Sound Track Pro. Sound Track Pro was used to create the ambient diagetic noises, such as the country sounds, gun shots, car noises and heartbeats also the special sfx of the flash backs, the program is straight forward, so there was no difficulty with, creating the music, this program allows us to watch the footage whilst adding the sound, this worked to our advantage as we could make sure it was in sync with the visual side of the film.

Ben was in charge of creating the music which plays throughout the ambient noises, we discussed what type of music we felt best to have running throughout the title sequence, then Ben who is familiar with the music program Logic Express, put our ideas into an track, it was a success. He made a track using keyboards and strings, made sure the tempo was slow, creating a suspenseful atmosphere through the use of sound.

The sound track was and overall, success and pulls the whole opening together, making it more suspenseful and drawing the audience in, I have no regrets of the process of the sound track.

Evaluation of filming

The process of filming was rather difficult, as we had to create a schedule that everyone could work around, it was difficult finding a day where all members of the group were free, yet in the end we managed to get our filming done on two different, occasions although we had one member missing each time.

The first day of filming, was at Whipps Cross, Courtney, Ben and myself were able to attend, and we managed to shoot footage of the scenery, and the awakening of the main character and some of the flash backs, and the discovering of the body. Overall the first day of filming was an success, we managed to film a lot of footage, this was useful whilst editing because we weren't short of choices, my only regret is not planing the shots well enough, yet all footage was useable and we never had to reshoot.



The second day of filming was a challenge as the member who plays the victim, couldn't attend shooting due to family commitments, yet we made a success of filming without her, by filming extreme close ups, where the body isn't identifiable, this worked to our advantage, and ended up making the opening more discrete, which creates more suspense. We filmed the flash backs, I believe this day was a greater success, as the shots and lighting effects gave a good effect, and we had further knowledge from previous filmings the do's and don't, my only regret is not being able to find a day which was compatible for every member because of the short time left.

Sound track

The programs used to make our sound track: Sound track Pro & Logic 

Whilst making the rough cut, we also began to make our rough draft on Sound Track Pro. We thought it would be smart to begin the ambient diagetic sounds on Sound Track Pro as this software provides them, but to create the non diagetic music on Logic, a professional program designed for music. Our group was fortunate to have access to this software, which Ben owns, as he is familiar with this program, we assigned him to making the actual music. We discussed the type of music we wanted to play, we decided to make it suspenseful, using piano, strings played slowly.

                  

Editing on Sound Track Pro: We used different sound effects such as 'country day' as it matches the mis en scene, during the flash backs we decided to add a distorted sound effect, relative to the sharp pains the character is feeling. The attack we contemplated weather to use the sounds of a heartbeat or weather it be too cliche, but we decided to include the sound of a women heavily, breathing and whilst the screen blacks out, the sounds of a gun shot.                 

Titles.

The titles was the finishing touch on the visual side of our opening. We had to follow the typical running order of a title sequence which is.

Running order of title sequence:

Company

Productions & associates

Stars

Title

casting 

more stars

director

Editing

Music

This is the order we followed as it was advised, because most movies run their title sequence in this order, with the exception of a few.

We had to include the Candi indent, which is used on all of the media projects, and then we then could add our actual titles. We created our titles on Final Cut Pro, we inserted text, positioning it over our footage instead of having a black screen, we decided to this to make it visually more exciting, and  to engage the audience. 

Throughout the title sequence, we used a white font we decided on this colour as it's the most noticeable colour against the background. The font which we used for the names is Ms Gothic and for the actual title we added the desaturate and glow effect which hinted toward its genre as it's slightly creepy and flicking resembles the flashbacks. 

Intextuality in 'Victim'

Our Thriller 'Victim' structure and story was inspired by the movie 'Momento'.
Momento has a unique structure where the story is told backwards, and through flash backs. To make our title sequence more interesting we decided to use flash backs, like Momento; we are able to separate the flashbacks from the current time because of the haziness and black and white filter, likewise to Momento.

The fact the structure is backwards, makes the thriller a 'psychological thriller' to make sure ours opening is of this genre, we followed this structure and made it clear without revealing too much about the narrative.

Evaluation of rough cut

 This is our first rough cut, at this stage we had not finished editing the sound, on sound track pro, and also hadn't edited in the titles as, we still need to cut some of the clips and we couldn't add the titles until, we had finalised our footage.

The rough cut duration is 2 minutes 45seconds, and our time limit is 2 minutes hence we have to cut the clips making, them precise and remove unnecessary footage, until the running time is closer to 2minutes. In order to meet our time limit we plan to cut the opening shot, and make the other scenes more sharp and quicker, also the gaps between the flash backs are going to be cut down.

At this stage we haven't included all of effects and transitions, we still plan to edit the contrast on the flash backs, making them look compatible to each other also to separate them from the current time, and to make it look like the characters memory, we are going to modify it adding an effect which adds a slight blur, showing the memories are distorted.

Rough Cut

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

Editing 2

In the first day of editing we managed cut clips and put them in order therefore the second day of filming we focused on the effect, transitions and lighting.

Once we had fixed the final order, we experimented with different filters, to make the brightness even on the flashbacks and we also put a black and white filter on, to separate the flashbacks from the rest of the footage, we done this on final cut pro in the modify tab. We explored different effects such as hazed and blurred, then came across 'light ray' effect, which we decided worked the best, as it creates a slightly blurred picture, yet doesn't ruin the footage, so its not completely unclear. 

During the last flash back, when the victim is about to get shot, we wanted to make look more intense than the rest of the flashbacks, so we decided to make a blinking effect, from the point of view of the victim, this we done by cutting the original footage and putting gaps in, between each other.