Audience research results

After creating the questionnaires, we handed a large bunch of them out to people in our media group and our friends, to find out their opinions on thrillers. With the information gathered, we can interpret this to understand what is needed to create a great thriller. We have slowly began to receive feedback from this which is proving to be very interesting. So far from what we can infer, people love thrillers with restricted narrations and strong, intense story plots. Although this is already quite a stereotypical aspect of thrillers, it is useful to know so we can consolidate our ideas. From these pie charts, we can interpret our data on good points to add to our film to make it a successful thriller. For example, most people suggested that good thrillers include restricted narrations to add a sense of suspense and keeps the viewer interested. This is good since we already planned to add a restricted narration and reinforces the confidence in our ideas.


                                                               

                                                                                                                

Editing

Over the last few days since we filmed our first flashback of the film, we have began to work as a group to begin to edit what we have filmed. We have decided to use a lot of computer techniques to make the scene look as effective as possible. For example, we have used a filter on the camera to create the idea of going back in time and that it is not in the modern day. Also, we have added reverb to the audio to give it echo which adds a ghostly feel to the scene. Tyler has had a lot of experience in editing and therefore has helped us put together some good editing techniques.

Filming begins!!!

Today we've started to begin filming for our proper film, we have started early to make sure we can get a good amount of time to edit as well as get some great shots. Today we filmed one of the flashbacks that happens right at the beginning of the film. We decided to do this first since my character is wearing a white shirt which will later be ruined in a later scene and makes sense to start there. 

Continuity upload

Now finished, we are able to upload our continuity task that we have been working on previously. We have used this to excersise our editing skills to prepare ourselves for our upcoming film. We improved the final product by using black and white which helps add to the seriousness and suspense of the feature. You can watch it below.

http://1drv.ms/1QE70Oc

Evaluating the continuity, we have learnt a lot from this task that we will be able to take forward to use in our main film. For example, when looking at match on action, we learnt a lot about how to execute it properly since we had some problems when we first began editing it together. However after to practice on iMovie we began get to grips with editing it effectively. This will save us editing time in our real film. We also learnt about having to use the 180 degree rule effectively, since one of our early shots of Dan's sweaty face accidently broke the 180 degree rule. However, we were able to fix this by reversing the shot, making it seem on the right side of the 180 line.

What we learnt:

• Based on the continuity task, use of shot - reverse - shot is effective at doing conversations in a scene
• The 180 degree rule is incredibly difficult to keep consistant
• Use of silence is incredibly effective at building suspense and giving the audience a jump when something loud happens.
• There will be continuity errors if you don't have multiple cameras to film at the same time
• Tyler is good at acting

Editing Continuity

Now that all of our continuity piece is filmed, we have started, and almost finished, the editing for it. This has a allowed us to excersise our editing skills such as match on action and straight cuts. With this under our belts, we can now begin to think about how we're going to edit our final film.

Continuity task

As part of our preparation for our proper film, we have been assigned to do a continuity task involving filming a short 1 minute film. This is to get used to filming and editing so when the time comes to start our own films, we know exactly what we're doing. For this short task we are going to be filming an interview with the possible employee being very, very nervous. For this we are going to use a variety of camera angles, shots and editing techniques such as match on action and shot-reverse-shot.

Our crew assignments are:
Actor 1 (boss) - Tyler
Actor 2 (employee) - Dan
Camera man 1 - Ewan
Camera man 2 - Hoiman

Questionnaires

To gather more influence and knowledge of what the general public enjoy about Thrillers, we have decided to start constructing a quesionnaire with which we will use to ask friends, family and others what they like specifically about Thrillers. Hopefully from this we will be able to gain an insight into what it actually is that people love about Thrillers, using this information in our favour to create a film that we know has the elements of a Thriller that people love.

Storyboards

Over the last few days me and the group have began to work on our storyboards, helping us finalise our ideas for what we are going to film for our introduction. whilst making storyboards we need to think about what variety of camera angles and shots we're going to use as well as the duration of each frame. We also have finalised locations to film and how they are going to be ordered in the film. So far we are looking to film a majority of the film in a wood setting for what is going to be in the present moment. We are also going to film partially in a café as well as a derelict building. Both of these locations are going to be used for what is going to be flashbacks in which the protagonist experiences.

Drive

Things we liked about Drive:

• Mise en scene - low intense lighting, long continuous shot inside car
• Use of camera - point of view, dissolve fx, over shoulder shot
• Restricted Narration - no back plot given to us about the beginning film

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdqbdEKeJ_4

Table of Analysis

In our recent media lessons, we have been watching the introductions of films to get an understanding of what key aspects are found in certain genre's openings. From this, we can use our knowledge to then begin shaping out key aspects that our 2 minute film opener should include to make it characteristic of that genre. From what we have found already, for a thiller, many openers include an unrestricted narration and usually fast action. This info is very useful to us to make sure we make our thriller as affective as possible

Fight Club

Things we liked about Fight Club:

• The dark filters used
• Use of camera - fast moving, close ups, match on action, long opening take
• Sound - parallel sound, non diegetic voice over
• Semi unrestricted narration - we have some grasp of the storyline from the beginning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zGeS8OFjEs

Se7en

Things we liked about se7en:

• Use of camera - fast editing shots, double exposures & dissolves, montage shots
• Very restricted narration - story line is very unclear
• Titles - flashing and flickering titles, shaky handwriting
• Mise en scene- low lightings, rustic machinery
  
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEq-4fua3lM

Beginnings

For my AS Media course, I have to create a 2 minute film intro in any style of my choice. My deadline is the 22^nd March and I am working in a group of 4. The group consists of other people in my media set who are Hoiman Chan, Daniel Johnston and Tyler Wilson. In our short film we must include different types of camera angles (that are characteristic of the genre) as well as using editing to create an effective image.

We have decided that the film is going to be under the genre of thriller since it is a genre that we all enjoy and believe that it will be an enjoyable task to attempt. To get an idea of what things we should incorporate into our film we have spent time in class looking at different opening scenes to various well known thriller films as well as writing detailed plans about what things we should include in our film. The openers we watched were from films such as Se7en, The Matrix, Drive, Goodfellas and Fight Club. All of which we have taken ideas and techniques that we are likely to include in our own piece.

We liked the idea of using voiceovers much like in the beginning of Fight Club as well as the fast moving frames that are found in that film alongside Se7en.