EVALUATION

AS MEDIA THRILLER EVALUATION

My media product that I did was an opening to a thriller movie. Openings of movies are important because it lets you no what the movie is going to be about. I see that some of the conventions of a thriller I have used. Thriller openings usually contain suspense in which that can be approached in many different ways. The location in thriller opening is important because it sets the scene. Props can also be important Conventions of a thriller. These are objects which can make affect meaning in the movie. Thriller films are usually shown from to character points. The first being of the protagonist, which involves the audience more and creates empathy for the character. The other character point is the villain which can lead to empathy for the villain. Events in the storyline enable the film to progress and allow the audience to guess what’s going to happen next. The dialogue in thrillers never contains a complete explanation or plot, to give it pace, and maintain the mystery which is essential in building up suspense. In my film I was the protagonist the audience were more focused on me whereas Lora was the villain she was the one causing suspense and empathy. Also are film didn’t have dialogue however we used background music. We used breathing and heart beats for me when I was struggling in the rope and used footsteps for Lora as she was getting closer. We had background music on top this put pace to be thriller and created a mystery.

From my other preliminary tasks that I have done, I have seen I have made major improvement in my work. I have seen I have learnt a lot through those exercises and was able to produce them in the making of my thriller opening. I have been able to use a more variety of shots rather than a few. I have seen that filming is very important during the process. You have to make sure you have filmed quite a lot of shots because when you come to put it on final cut pro some have either been filmed wrong, filmed to short or long or either you don’t like it. My group took loads of shots but in the end we didn’t use all of them we ended up mix and matching quite a few of them. I also found out that match cutting was very important because it helps to make the film make sense and easier to understand what their doing from different views. My group used match cuts when Lora was walking into hall way then opening the door. This match cut worked well because we were able to see where she was coming from and what she was going to do. Also I found final cut pro quite easy to do because I was used of it through the other preliminary tasks when using it. Also blogging, we had to record everything we done. We had to use the internet a website called blogger and had to write what you done every lesson. I found it all right because you can go back to it if you need to remember what you done in a lesson.

Our thriller opening is mainly for 18+ the reason for this is that children younger than that will be seeing and hearing things they do not want to hear. It may also represent other social groups like 15 -16 because they might want to see a bit of action and may look up to the films Also 30+ the reason for this is that it may be suited and that they are more know ledged and will be able to understand things easier also it will more likely be suited to middle class people because its natural for them to watch it. In addition, when producing the film we challenged stereotype, instead of a woman being a victim it was a man. That was quite useful because it related to our title Vengeful Vixen.

Our thriller opening will more likely to be located and distributed in U.K cinemas. The reason why I say that is because we made it in the U.K and its more suited to U.Ks rather than others from America etc. Also it seems smaller budget and more people will view it that way.

Our audience for our thriller is mainly teenagers, 15+. The reason why I say that is because people younger than that would want to be seeing explicit scenes e.g. blood, killing. There may also be swearing which won’t be good for younger children. Adults may also watch it as well if their into the thriller genre. It will be unlikely for elderly to watch it because so much will be going on and they might not be able to understand it. Both genders are likely to watch it because it features both genders init. The film is more like for someone who goes to college/work, likes watching thriller films and likes going out.

Our film will have a star person like a celebrity who is starring in it. They will get shown in the film and they will be well known which will make people want to see it. In addition, the way we produce it will help attract the audience. We will have producer and produce it over many industry’s e.g. TV cinemas, internet which will make more people see it. TV because basically everyone watches TV. Cinemas because people go to a cinema to watch films and when they see a preview of our film and if they think it looks good they will go to watch it. And internet because that’s worldwide and anyone will be to see it. Also the genre of it our film fits the genre so when people see it they will no it’s a thriller. Also at the beginning of the film it starts black then has a tracking shot which leads into the person. The way it starts shows it’s a thriller so it’s likely to catch peoples attention. Also the different range of shots we used close ups of the victim and the slow motion affect. These all helped it to verify the genre.

Through the process of the making of the film I see that the technology has helped a lot. Firstly, on the practical we had to film in many different places to get the right affect. When we filming we had to use props to make better affect. In addition, we had to make sure that the people being filmed wore the same clothes so it looked more realistic. We also had to make sure we had a load of shots and took 5 seconds before recording. The reason for this is because when we were uploading the clips on to final cut pro we had to do mark in and out point on each clip. In addition, while using final cut pro we had make each clip shorter to fit the length on our film. Our film ended out being 1min and 41 seconds but still was roughly aright. During the process, we used final cut pro. It was easy for me because I had used it before we had to upload all the clips then use mark in and out points for them. We then put all the clips in order and saw how it runs through. Final cut pro was able to make our thriller better we were able to use effects etc to help it look good e.g. fades, dissolves, slow motion. We also used live type pro. We used that for the credits and film name Vengeful Vixen. The reason why we used live type because we were able to make vengeful affect which went well with our film. We also used soundtrack pro for the sound. Here was a variety of music sounds we had to choose from for our soundtrack. We used a mixture or soundtracks e.g. heartbeats footsteps to create affects. We also used background music to create the scene. The use of blogging allowed me to keep a record of what we have done to make references to when looking back to things we still required to perform in order to make a good thriller opening. Also we were able to release it on vimeo and on our blogs which illustrates to growing affect of the internet in our lives and how even amateurs can still put something out there to entertain audiences.

finished thriller

Last friday me and my group finally finished our long awaited media thriller which took alot of time and stress to complete and we did and finished it to the best of our ability. This was a huge step for us because when we where making the practice ones hey where much below average and it is as if we did not put any effort in at all even though we did. Now, with our main thriller the editing is much better, the soundtrack is way more skilled and choreographed and the lighting is supreme. The main thing I personally like about my thriller is the lighting we had used to portray the movement and events which where going on throughout the short film. The main character who was me elliot, my facial expressions where shown wonderfully and the sweat which was on his arms where clear because of the lighting and that made it better. Furthermore when we see my shadow at the start it entices the audience to see what is happening and persuade them to watch on. Overall i think our thriller fim is great viewing and the most important thing is that we got it finished to our liking.

4th Feburary

On the 4th of february we continued filming for an opening of a thriller movie which lasts 2 minutes. This was a very productive filming session where we filmed the second character in our story line and what their role is in the story. We used many props such as fake blood and a light brown cloth which shows reprsentation to an enourmous affect. We once again also used a spotlight to set he scene instead of a normal light which would not be as effective. We used various shot types to show what was going on.for example we used point of view shot for the character. A close up of the brown cloth and the object that was inside it. Furthermore we used medium shot of the villian cleaning the evidence away. For me and my group this was a productive lesson because we mangaed to get most of what we needed and with a bit more filming time we will be able to start editing and making our opening of a thriller into a spectacle.

wednesday 28th january

On wednesday the 28th me and my group started filimng our opening to a thriller movie. we used alot of equpment including the tables to get the shots we needed. We used the spotight to emphasise our character and set the scene. This was important because he is the vocal point of the story we are trying to display. Furthermore the group combinded well and we used each otthers ideas and we put them into practice and i personallly think that went well. Th e filming was also excellent because everybody in my group used the camera and we worked well as a team and a unit and i am very pleased with that.

monday 26th january

In this lesson we started planning for our horror film. We came up with ideas what we were going to do. We had loads of diffent ideas e.g stalker, kidnapper, killer etc. We slightly decided to do kidnapper and started planning it. We started planning what its going to be about and whats going to happen in it. We also thought wat type of shots were going to use e.g close ups etc. We basically had an idea at the end of the lesson but we were going to carry it on the next lesson.

Monday 15th December

In this lesson we uploaded our mini clips onto the blog. While we were doing that we were answering about our clips and how we developed it. We then watched our clips again but on the blog. We saw what we did and what we need to do to improve it. We then went back to class and watched some horror films to the end of the lesson. This was to help everyone improve for the future.

wednesday 10th December

On Wednesday the 10th we watched our mini clips we made. This was a good thing because we were able to see others peoples work and ideas. This made me look back over our work and see all the advantages and disadvantages of our work. Me and ma group saw that our mini clip could of been inproved so next time i would be able to make a better job of it.

Monday 8th December

on monday the 8th of january we had to use our editing skills by editing the game or cards which we filmed. Mickey gave us a bit of help with this then after we all had to do bits our self. We saw quite a few funny shots and had quite a few laughs. We didnt finish editing it all in the same lesson so we had to cum to workshop to finish it off. I found that quite effective because we were able to have more time and add more effects in to make it look good.

Watching

In todays lesson we watched a documentary about openings of movies. This documentary was called Watching. We had to research about openings while answering questions to it. In this documentary we were shown many different types of openings to movies which included some that had a slow gradual build up to excitement and some that had excitement rite at the start. We were then able to see different techniques we can use for our openings for our thriller project. While analysing the documentary we looked quotes from Thomas Sutcliffe and Jean Jacques Beineix and had our view on what they said.

what we learned from practice filming

We were told to do a thriller using a game cards fir our practise filming but instead it turned out to be a comedy. I think that our group could of done much better. The reason why I say this is because we didn’t take enough shots and match all the shots up properly. Also we ended up changing locations which also confused us what to do next in which made us skip some shots. I thought the editing went quite well. The only thing was that we didn’t have enough shots which didn’t make our thriller match up. I learnt that the mise en scene was important be cause they were the things that led to suspense. We didn’t have a lot of mise en scene therefore ours didn’t have any suspence. Our group wasn’t able to create suspense but we were able to create comedy. The reason why I say this is because towards the end there was a bit of slow motion and fast motion mixed together which made it look funny. Also I ended up doing a slow motion run when I was supposed to be running quite fast that also made it quite funny. We forgot to do more shots and put some sound in. If we were to put some sound in i reckon that it would of had more suspense. i think we used the camera shots for the conventions of a thriller but we just wasn't able to match everything up. The feedback from the class and teacher was that it was funny and we used 1 or 2 good close ups. We could have made it more better by having more tension and suspense. I feel that we could have made it much better. We should have used more shots and timed everything right. We should have had more suspense rather than having it comedy.

practice film scene

In wednesdays lesson we had to do a practise version of our thriller, inwhich involed a game of cards. For my group we brang in a poker set to make da scene more realistic. We then had to film our practise peace. We then went downstairs to the lower ground to do our filming. We filmed in various places 2 make it look realistic. We first started of in the hall way then we then moved into a room were me and Onemi we playing cards. We uses a varied of shots and differnet angles to see what it looked like. After we finished filming in the room we done the end bit. This was funny because me and Onemi were fighting for the suitcase with all the money init. I ended up taking it and running off with it.

first editing session

On mondays lesson we were in da editing room and we learning how to edit for our real horror project. We had to edit clips of a little boy and a old man and put them in order. We had to learn the steps of editing and how to use final cut pro. We then learnt diffent types of effects we can use for our project. e.g match cuts, fades. This gave me all ideas for what i can do for my real one. I then had practise doing the editing techniques but with the same clips of the boy and the old man. I found it quite easy and I was able to match up everything well by using a varied of techniques.