Thriller Evaluation

My thriller used the conventions of real media products in terms of characters, props and editing. My thriller used the convention of beginning a thriller with the ending. This is known as the ‘favourite trick of Film Noir’. However we also challenged the conventions of a real thriller because you normally have some sort of stalker. Instead we just have two innocent characters with no villain. The only suspected villain is the character who wakes up and finds her friend dead. The only reason she is suspected is because she has blood on her hands. Before I made my thriller I watched a BBC documentary called ‘Film Openings which was presented by Thomas Sutcliffe. ’ The documentary said that ‘a good beginning must make the audience feel that it doesn’t know nearly enough yet, and at the same time make sure that it doesn’t know too little’. My thriller follows this convention because we give just the right amount of information. In addition, my thriller stuck to the genre of thrillers. This is because my thriller is quite mysterious.

My thriller opening consists of two main characters both of which are young women between the ages of 17-22. My film represents their social group as people who often go out partying. This is because within the flashbacks we see them walking and laughing. They are dressed up wearing heels etc so they are obviously going to some sort of event/occasion. This relates to them being victims because they are innocently going out to enjoy themselves.

The media institution that is most likely to distribute my movie would be a Hollywood blockbuster, which is located all around the world. This is because our movie has all the conventions and characteristics of an actual thriller. It wouldn’t be a DVD releaseonly, because I want to know whether or not the audience likethe film. In order to find this out it would be best for it to come out in cinema first and see how many people go to see it and find out whether or not people enjoyed it enough to go and buy it on DVD. Idonot think it should be made for TV because it does not fit under the category of documentary/short film.

The audience for my media project would be teenagers preferably from the age of 16 upwards. This is because they are the age group who will be able to relate to the film because they go partying and enjoy nights out. There is no particular race that the film is for, this is because all young women from every race tend to go clubbing. We decided that the thriller would be marked as 15+ because people from that age may be able to relate to the film e.g. partying. Also I think it is better because have a wider audience. The opening is not too gory and does not contain any inappropriate scenes so there is no need to mark it as an 18. In addition, the setting of my film hasn’t shown what race lives in that area. Regardless of the fact that both characters in the film are black, the audience the film will appeal to is mainstream. This is because of the clothes that the characters are wearing, they are quite nicely dressed.

In terms of advertising, I would advertise on buses because buses travel to many different areas so wherever we may not be able to go and advertise the bus can do it for us. However, uses a bus allows the film to be advertised in only a certain country e.g. London.

I would also advertise online with trailers i.e. on YouTube and face book. This is better than advertising on just buses because these sites will allow the film to be advertised globally.

I would advertise online because many people go on these sites so the film will be getting a lot of publicity. In addition, there will be posters posted in cinemas and in magazines, which will say coming soon. This is because we are telling the audience in advance. The film will also be in previews in the cinema.

Here is a poster I made for the film. This could be seen buses. magazines and newspapers.

The trailer for the movie would consist of some of the most exciting parts of the movie. Most trailers show the most exciting parts of the movie e.g. explosions car chases, and killings. This is because these bits engage the audience and attract them to want to watch the film. However, I would not put all of the exciting parts of the movie into the trailer because putting all of the exciting parts would leave the audience with nothing to look forward to. Here are some examples of thriller trailers.

Before we made our real thriller we made a practice thriller. We had to follow a sheet that said ‘a character opens a door, walks into a room, sits down opposite another character and they share a few lines of dialogue’. We decided on where we were going to film and went out to film.

The practice thriller influenced my thriller in terms of camera shots. In our practice thriller we did a lot of match cuts, which I thought, looked really good. This led us to creating match cuts in our actual thriller. Also I learnt that location mattered a lot. In our practice thriller we used a very open location where many people were, this taught us that the location for our actual thriller had to be somewhere that was not so open and somewhere where people didn’t go. This is because in order for us to film, our location has to look the same throughout. We can’t film one day with no cars on the road and film another day and have 3-4 cars in the same shot. Our practice thriller also taught us that we shouldn’t make our thriller to complicated because it takes a lot of time. E.g. trying to film a character across the road when there are cars passing by.

During the making of this film, I came across a lot of new technology. Some of which are:Final cut Pro-

This is what the professionals use. This programme is what we used to edit the film. When we had finished filming we loaded our filming onto Final cut Pro, logged, and captured it. Log and capturing is splitting your film up into bits so you can place certain clips anywhere you want. Final cut Pro is where most of the work is done. It has special effects such as fading in, out and sliding.

Final cut Pro is rather easy to use once you get the hang of it. Also, it is not too complicated.

Another programme we used was Live type:

This programme was mainly used for our credits Live type. Live type can be tricky at first but it is very useful. You can write your text onto a coloured background or you can write it onto you film.

My group decided to write our credits on a black background as it gives more of a thrilling effect. We also added faded white lines in the background to add a thrilling effect.

The animation that Live type provides was also very useful and there is a large range to choose from. Here are some of the animations available to use:

We decided to use the font cracked because it looked rather thrilling and it stood out well.

Along with the new technology I came across I also came across a lot of new equipment. The main equipment that was used were:

- Camcorders (Canon XM1)

- Tripods

- Batteries

- Lights

Looking back. I can say that I have learnt that the process of making a film requires a lot of time, effort and planning. I learnt that film writers must write a pitch before their film can be created. Their pitch must persuade filmmakers that their film is good enough to be created and also get money that is needed to make the film. I also learnt there are many different types of shots within a film and these shots make a big difference. Shots such as close-ups add so much detail to whatever is on screen.

Overall I thought my thriller was a success. We managed to stick to the concept that it was just an opening rather than a whole film. Also, I learnt a lot during the process. If I were to do it all over again some changes I would make are:

-My location because I would like to try something a bit more complicated

-The time we film, even though the first time we filmed in the dark didn't work out, I would like to try and make an attempt at it.

However I would keep the concept of my thriller because it leaves the audience with a lot to think of. Also, the concept of my thriller can be filmed in many different locations. I would keep the numbers of characters as 2 because it makes things a lot easier.

Thriller

12/03/09

Today we were lucky enough to be able to watch all of the media students work in the cinema. This was good because it allowed me to hear what people thought of my thriller and I also got to see what work other people produced.

One film I thought it needed mending was love me not. I thought them putting a list of credits at the end made their film look like a short film rather than an opening. Also in one shot their tripod and bags for lighting could be seen. This was very bad, it relates to mise en scene-what can be seen in the shot.

Another thriller we watched was ‘vengeful vixen’, I thought this thriller was okay but looked really cheap. The thriller looked as though it had been shot in the college. Most of it was edited by computer so much film was not required. Also some of their shots were repeated.

 Another thing I looked out for was sound. The soundtracks of most of the thrillers were good because they added intensity and suspense to the film. However some non-diegetic sound was badly used because it didn’t mix well with what was on the screen. As for example one film showed a knife being picked up but the non-diegetic sound sounded as if seven knives were being picked up. Also many thrillers used a voice over as for example one thriller showed a radio and they had voice over with a mans voice and he was saying the news which related to one of the characters in the thriller. 

Thriller

03/03/09 

Today we looked at our classes thrillers. There were four thrillers in total to watch. We were told to make notes on each thriller.

The first thriller we watched was ‘Illicit content’ by Corinne, Candy, Jordane and Abdul. We are shown a street that shows some houses and someone goes and posts a letter into one of the houses. We are introduced to the main character quite quickly. The music is very good because it relates to the main character who is a young girl who looks as though she has just come in from a late night out. Rather than violins playing in the background we hear music that sounds as if it could be played at a club. This good because it relates to the main character.

They also had a variety of shots from close-ups to wide shots to long shots. The close-ups added more detail to what was happening e.g. the letter dropping through the letterbox and the close-up of the water running.

Another group we watched was ‘Happily every after?’ by Cassie, Patrice, Abubakar and Ahmed. Their thriller was about a sister who was playing in the park with her little brother and they were being watched.

Luckily, my class watched my group’s thriller. This was good because we were given feedback and we were able to hear other people’s opinions on our thriller. All of the feedback we got was good. Some of the feedback we got was that the flashbacks gave the audience just the right amount of information. They learnt that the characters went partying the night before and something bad happened which led to one of the characters ending up dead. The class also said that the flashbacks told them that the characters knew each other. Also the title relates to the flashbacks and gave them an idea of what the story was about.

The class also told us that our use of point of view shots were very effective and also added a thrill.

We were also told that it was very good because it did not reveal too much about the film, which is good because it’s only the opening and we do not want the audience to know the whole story from the beginning because they won’t want to watch it anymore.

I was quite happy with the reaction we got from the audience because they seemed very interested in the storyline. They were lots of questions so I knew we had drawn them in to want to watch more.

The third thriller we watched was ‘hostage’ by Rudo, Claudia and Tara. Their thriller was very well put together. They had many different shots and lots of match cuts which worked very well together. The lighting also added to the fright in the thriller.

Evaluation

We have finally completed  our thriller. The title of the thriller is the night before.

Looking back on our work I can say that I am happy with what has been produced.

We decided that the thriller would be marked as 15+  because people from that age may be able to relate to the film e.g.  partying. Also I think it is better because have a wider audience. The opening is not too gory and does not contain any inappropriate scenes so there is no need to mark it as an 18.

Some adjustments I would make are:

-

I do not feel as though everyone in my group put in an equal amount of effort into making this thriller. I feel as though some members put more into the making of the thriller than others which is not fair.

Thriller Editing

During the half term the college held a workshop for media students. I managed to use some of my time to come in to add the finishing touches to our thriller. Although I was alone I managed to finish the thriller completely.

I had to create more credits and insert them into the footage. I also made sure that putting the credits in did not create any changes with the sound, if they did I adjusted it.

To create a soundtrack we used Soundtrack Pro. There are a range of sounds available to use.

Thriller

Since we had to film again we decided to film during the day. We already had our flashbacks so we just had to film the day after the incident. We filmed many different shots so we had a variety to choose from. We first filmed an close up of the establishing shot (the name of the street) and then we moved on to introducing the character. We shot a high angle shot/wide shot which showed the character and then shot a close up shot. The camera then tilted up the character. 

I managed to bring props such as heels and jewellery to show that the characters went partying the night before.
Once we finished filming we went back to college and began to log and capture our footage.

Karel managed to make a soundtrack during her spare time which helped us a lot. The soundtrack creates a sense of suspense it fades in and out of the film. There is also some diegetic sound within the footage. It later goes into the sound of a heartbeat which creates more suspense.

Our thriller opening is very simple. We have only two characters.
We had to create the credits using livetype and insert it into final cut pro.

Thriller opening

During our previous lesson we decided that we finally need to start filming for our thriller opening. Our original idea was to go ally pally which is a funfair in Alexandra palace. Unfortunately, we found out that the funfair will not always be there for us to film so we decided to film in a location that we knew would always be there for us. We also decided that ally pally was too far of a location for us to film just in case we forgot anything at college we would have to go all the way back which would just be a waste of time.

The night before I had been thinking of some ideas for our location. On my way to school with Karel, we saw an alley which was quite near to the college and we decided that we should ask the rest of of our group if they would like to film there. They thought that the location was perfect.
Below are some images of the location:









I also thought of some ideas to add to the thriller. The original ideas a schizophrenic waking up at a funfair and finding someone dead. They then called someone and it turned out to that the dead person was the person they were calling. I thought that there was too much and because we were no longer able to film in the funfair I thought that the idea needed some mending. I thought that we should keep the idea of someone waking up in the middle of a street and to find a friend dead nearby. However I came up with the idea that it should be a flashback rather than the person being schizophrenic. So a young lady wakes up to find herself in the middle of a street. She begins to pass many places and as she passes them she begins to have flash backs of the night before. She comes across her friend who has been killed and then we zoom into her face and it ends there.

We wanted the audience to have mixed responses. Some may have connotations that the girl who just woke up has killed her friend whilst others may think otherwise. This is good because it will make the audience want to watch more which is the point of an opening.  We don't want to start the film with the audience knowing everything about the film, there would be no point in watching the rest of the film then.

My group and I decided to use a lot of non-diegetic sound. We were also going to record some sounds of cars passing to give some effect . We decided that we should make the soundtrack before we made the thriller. This is because the soundtrack may not blend with what is happening in the film if we made it first. As for example there may be a bit in the soundtrack which is trying to scare the audience whilst the film is showing someone just walking past. It would not make sense. We have to know when thrilling bits are going to happen in order to make the soundtrack.

We also made a decision that the credits would be a black background with white text. The program we are using to make the credits is LiveType. I managed to find time to experiment with the program. I came across some fonts that I thought would be useful for the opening of our thriller.

Once we arrived in class decided to do a storyboard. The storyboard helped us to get a visual idea of exactly what our thriller will look like. We did an outline of the opening, describing shots, lighting and length of each shot. We also said where the credits were going to be placed within our opening.

Pitching the movie

A pitch is when someone tries to sell their idea to someone in order to receive funding or equipment in order to continue with their filming.

We had to come up with a pitch in order to convince our teachers to lend us the equipment we required to for our opening.

This is a bad example of a pitch. The people who are pitching the movie are not being serious and are not providing the man with enough detail about the movie. Also the man who is listening wants to know more about the romance of the film but they keep changing topic.

Here is another video of a bad pitch.
The man pitching the movie is not being serious. He is talking too fast and when the directors are asking him questions he does'nt even stop to listen to what they have to say. He does not explain his film in detail. Also he just walks in randomly and obviously has not prepared to pitch hi film.

This video shows a man giving people advice on how to pitch a movie.

The advice he gives is really good, he tells the people that they should make a connection with the director before they start talking about their movie. He says they should speak quite slowly in order for the director to catch what they are saying. They should have eye contact and try to engage the directors.

Practice Filming

Thriller Research

In my spare time, I decided to research thrillers.

Seeing that we are making an opening to a thriller I decided to look at some thriller openings in order to get an idea of what characteristics should be in my thriller opening.

With my research, I found that thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action. Within the genre 'Thriller', there are many sub-genres. Some of which are:
Action thriller - which the work often features a race against the clock, contains lots of violence. These films usually contain large amounts of guns and explosions.

Crime thriller - These films often focus on the criminal(s) rather than a policeman.

Disaster thriller - In which the main conflict is due to some sort of natural or artificial disaster, such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes etc. A very popular disaster thriller is titanic.

Supernatural thriller - In which the conflict is between main characters, usually one of which has supernatural powers.

Drama thriller - These films are usually slower paced and the characters true backgrounds are often revealed later during the film.

Storyboard Tutorial/Match cut Excercise

In one of our previous lessons we were told to use a grid to create a shot list for this synopsis "East London. 3pm. A man chain-smokes as he sits at home at his PC. He copies confidential computer files and plans to a CD. He packages them and is seen posting them.

We were told to film the following sequence, making sure to use at least one match cut, an example of shot/reverse shot and showing we had an understanding of the 180 degree rule.
"A character opens a door, walks into a room, sits down opposite another chracter and they share a few lines of dialogue."

Our group decided that we wanted to try and make it thrilling, because it would be good practice for our real thriller.

I came up with the idea that we should use the N1 centre as our location because it is close and we could take some really good shots there. Our storyline was there was someone walking towards the N1 centre. She walks towards the stairs and sees a strange person standing on the top of hte stairs so she then decides to take the escalator. Once she reaches the top of the escalator she turns around to see her friend sitting down. She then walks to the friend, sits down and has a small conversation. The friend then leaves and the main character stands up and looks over the escalator, only to see that the strange poerson is now coming up the escalator. She runs to the cinema but its locked.She then runs to open the lift but once the lift opens the strange man jumps out and drags her into the lift. The lift then closes and it ends there.

Making a thriller

During our last Media lesson my class looked at a documentary by BBC TV which was presented by Thomas Sutcliffe.

Whilst we were watching the documentary we were told to answer questions. One of the questions said to explain what Thomas Sutcliffe meant when he said "Films need to seduce their audience into long term commitment. While there are many types of seduction, the temptation to go for instant arousal is also irresistible." This means that the audience must be drawn into the film and they must want to watch it throughout. He is also saying that the temptation to start with the best bits is almost irresistible. However,according to director Jean Jacques Beineix there are risks of instant arousal. Some of which are:
- You begin to wonder what you can do next
- You have to live up to the audiences expectation.

Also from the documentary i learnt that a good opening must not give the audience to much so that they will want to watch more, but it should not give the audience too little so they have a slight idea and understanding of the storyline.

We also looked at what Stanley Kauffmann describe to be the classic opening. According to him the classic opening begins with the establishing shot/long shot (of a building), then a low angle shot which begins to tilt up. You then see the receptionist and then the private office.

We were also able to look at the opening sequence of seven which was created by Kyle Cooper. The opening sequence is so effective because it draws you in straight away. It foreshadowed what was going to happen in the film. The cut away scenes are also very effective and the way the credits fluttered around before they were able to be seen created a thrilling sense.

In addition, we were asked what is meant by the term " a favourite trick of film Noir". This is when the beginning of the film is actually the ending and the rest of the film explains it.

We were also shown he opening of the Shining again. The opening creates suspense because it is as if the camera is following the car like a predator.

We also looked at some of the thrillers that the previous year had made. We were told the grade of each thriller which helped because it gave us some sort of idea of what we are suppose to make. One of the thrillers i found really good that the previous year made was blacklisted.

I thought that the students idea was well thought and made a lot of sense. It was very simple because it did not have too much and stayed in the category of a thriller. The film basically had a girl who was on her way home from shopping and it then showed her unloading her shopping. We were then shown a man in a car who looked suspicious. Once the woman finished loading her shopping her door bell rang and when she went to answer it, there was nobody there. Then as she closed the door the man who was in the car appeared behind her and the film ended there. I thought this was a very good thriller because we (the audience) were so calm whilst she was loading the shopping , then we were worried by the door bell ringing but we went back to calm once we found out nobody was there and then we were thrilled at seeing the man appear behind her. I thought that the way they built up to the climax was very smart.

Another film we were shown made by previous students was missing. We were shown someone running in the woods. She looked as though she was lost or she had been kidnapped, I was unsure of which one. Then we were constantly shown a face which looked rather scary. I was unsure if the face belonged to the person who was missing or a monster.

I did however think that the location they used was very good. They used the woods which looked very foggy and mysterious, however it would have gone to better use if they were making a horror. I personally disliked the film and thought that the concept was very bland and went on far too long. I also thought it went more to the genre of a horror rather than a thriller. It didn't thrill me at all because I was constantly shown a face which was meant to be scary. It didn't build up to anything either, and I think a thriller should be up to something that will scare the audience.

Another film I thought that was very good was the untold. This thriller achieved the highest grade. I thought it was good because they kept the storyline nice and simple. It wasn't too over the top and we were provided with just enough information. The camera shots were also very good. They had some match cuts in there also we were very precise.

One of the films I enjoyed the most was the final hour. However, I would not classify the film as a thriller because nothing thrilled me. I would classify it as Action Sci-Fi, that is what it connotes to me. I also had connotations that the main character was a spy which isn't usually a big character in thrillers. I was however very interested in the storyline and once it had finished I wanted to know more and what had led to the ending. I would classify that as action rather than thriller. But I thought their camera shots were very good.

The shining

In my last media lesson we watched a thriller called the Shining.

The thriller is about a man who gets a job in a big hotel and he, his wife and son move there. Before he moves there he is told a story of a man that use to live there. The man who lived there previously killed his wife and twin daughters. Once they move, strange things begin to happen. The mans son begins to see strange things like the twin daughters of the previous man and a corridor being filled with blood. He also begins to continuously see the words red rum. The father starts turning mad and tries to kill the wife and son.

One scene that I found thrilling was when the son was in the maze. The steady camera was used in the maze. This made it easy for us to follow the boy whilst he was running in the maze. I found this scene thrilling because you did not know what was coming next, and it felt as if we were with the boy because the steady cam made it as if we were running with him.

Another scene I found thrilling was when the son was riding around the hotel and he came across the room which he was not suppose to enter and the door was open.

I thought the cut away scenes of the twins and the corridor filled with blood were also quite thrilling. I thought these were thrilling because you never expected it. It was very random and would pop up out of the blue. the cut away scenes also gave hints to the audience about the storyline.

Also the diegetic sound of the tricycle on the floor and carpet added some sort of tension because the audience didn't know what was coming next. Also the sound was very loud which was thrilling because if anything were to happen the audience would being shock.

Camcorder Tutorial

During this lesson we were put into our groups and we were told we were going to watch a tutorial on how to use the camcorders. We were provided with a camcorder, tape and tripod. There were two different types of camcorders the Canon XM1 and Canon XM2, the camcorders are very similar but have slight differences so we had to make sure we knew which camcorder we were working with. My group was using the Canon XM1.

The tutorial taught us how to:
-Insert the tape into the camcorder
-Open and close the camcorder
-How to place the camcorder on the tripod
-How to make sure we are recording
-Rewind and watch what we had previously recorded
-Make the tripod go really high or really low
-Open and close the tripod

Once we had finished watching the tutorial we were each given turns to try and use the equipment. E.g insert the tape into the camcorder, open and close the tripod. Once we finished using the equipment each group was told to go and record our film. I had previously told my group about booking the library's group study room and they thought it was a good idea. We took the camcorder, tape and tripod. Lamar had brought his own set of cards which was easier. We went to the group study room and switched off the lights in order to create suspense. Unluckily the room was still very bright because there were blinds and light was still able to come through. We decided that it didn't matter and that we should continue on with the filming. Whilst we were in class we came to a conclusion of our roles. Me and Lamar were going to be the actors whilst Kai and Karel were going to do the filming. There were tables and chairs in the room all we had to was arrange them. We took one small sized table and placed it near a wall. Lamar sat on the chair which leant on the wall. We did this so that Lamar looked as though he had some sort of power, which was the part of the aim in our film.

Practice Filming

During our media lesson we were given a sheet of paper which told us that in the next lesson we must film a card game being played but we must make in thrilling. The sheet said that we need two players, a set of cards and a table. we were then put into groups and told to think of ideas for the filming. Being told this I went home and thought of many different ideas that would make the card game interesting. I decided that I would rent the library group study room for one hour so that me and my group will be able to work somewhere that we will have privacy and not have to worry about people constantly interfering with our work. Also the group study room had tables which made it a lot easier for us. I also came up with an idea that we should put off the lights and have flashlights shining on each of our payers faces, this is because it will add suspense to the game.