AS Media Final Cut Thriller Opening

Heeral Patel – Evaluation: Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

We have developed our skills from our preliminary on how to film and use editing; there were few shots that we had to retake as we didn’t use many transitions or different types of camera angle. In our preliminary task there were few shots we didn’t pay attention for example: we didn’t see the surrounding around our character, some of the shots were out of focus which ruined some of our shots. 

During this process we learnt to improve not to use long shot because they end up losing audience’s attention. How to flow from one shot to another: using match on action gives a sense of continuity for this reason we decided to use this technique in our opening sequence.  When Maya gets out of bed and she is straight in the bathroom I think this was very effective and done well as this fits in well with the thriller theme of sudden changes

shadow image

similar photo

This shot of the left is very effective because we have let the natural light from the window to create a shadow, also that I am dressed in black n the wall on the left and right side of me where black so the lighting from the background was a sign of hope if it was a thriller. This creates a silhouette mysterious figure behind the camera. 

The shot on the right shows that we had a very good lining on the floor where I was walking pass , having shot this accurate highlights the action happening in the scene which the audience can take in account.  From this I have learnt that the image in the camera screen should always be in line/ straight for it to look accurate and professional done.

The shot of Maya reading the paper is well composed as the newspaper is in the centre where it get the highest attention and Maya is in the ¼ of the scene.

Another shot that I thought was done accurately using composition skills:  was when Maya is in bed and the alarm is in front on the side table to focus on the alarm clock we used the function the camera to blur Maya’s face.

Heeral Patel - Evaluation Question6 :what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

http://prezi.com/zjryhlwrugba/untitled-prezi/?kw=view-zjryhlwrugba&rc=ref-39533929

Heeral Patel – Evaluation: Question5: how did you attract/ address your audience?

By using suitable props and shots we were able to make communication with the audience and get them to engage with our theme. As the 15+ is a for young adult who may not be familiar with the concepts of a thriller therefore we used less complicated visions such as the language itself or some disturbing scene. 

15+classification 

As we were making a film of 15+ we had to check the classification for this we used the website: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/15 where we got the information on what and how much to include in our opening which is appropriate for that age group , therefore there was no use of sex scene, swearing or discriminatory language .

The use of sound which was made on imac, it was done using piano and had drums and guitar playing within it, this created a mysterious environment. This soundtrack was played toward the opening s we had no dialogues this make the atmosphere creepy and built up tension of what will come next.

We didn’t challenge the camera shots or editing as we didn’t want to make any scenes of ours complicated, our setting that we have used for AS media is a house which makes it all realistic, the use of dark scenes such as the bed scene, this shot to be done in school would be very difficult as we have to be careful managing the lighting. To represent our theme we had good use of mice en scene such as pill box, white colour, doctor’s note , these things would appeal to the audience .

The white paper

Due to the questionnaire that we had done for our audience research gave us imminent into the popular thriller themes which are used within the thrillers that are preferred.  By using an white British blonde girl in our product which the audience could easily identify as being the main character but yet feel sympathy towards her due to her abnormal disorder. By having no such script in our opening made our character seem helpless and this is how we were able to address the audience and grab their attention by making them feel a part of it. The piano in the soundtrack had a echoing effect which created an peculiar atmosphere, this made it recognizable by the audience as they would know the approaching threat in the film.

Heeral Patel – Evaluation: Question4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

For our audience research we asked questions to a certain age group of 15 to 60 years olds who would prefer a thriller films, doing a questionnaire or any other method we can find out what the audience best prefer to watch when choosing thriller films. By doing audience research we are able to gather information which can help us add convention that the audiences are most willing to see and they can relate with.

 In the questionnaire, we asked the volunteer if they knew the different between a horror and a thriller and we found that majority of people lacked the knowledge of knowing the difference. Another question was if music was an importance factor in any films.

Using Microsoft excel we made our data bar chart which represented the results we gained from our questionnaires. 

The majority of we asked didn't know the difference between
thriller and horror.

 We found that a high percentage of people thought it was important as it helps to build up the whole film and can contribute to the change in the atmosphere. From our questionnaire’s results we made a soundtrack on using ‘garageband’, where the sound was playing throughout our opening.

The majority of people we asked were from aged 16-18
giving us a clear view on what this age group
would prefer

16 to 18 was the highest percentage of young pupil that enjoyed thriller therefore we decided to go with an age group of 15+.

Heeral Patel – Evaluation: Question3 What kind of media intuition might distribute your media product and why?

The audience we researched for were mainly mainstream audience and the convention used in our opening reflects the need of 15+ and mainstream production. When we researched we found out that people couldn't distinguish between thriller and horror therefore we had to use simper versions of convention.  The production of the film comes first in the film titles as it introduces the institutional company which shows if it’s a mainstream or independent. A mainstream product is easily reconginable by by a wider audience as it includes he theme they'd be interested in.
Production Company

A production company is responsible for fundraising; it deals with scheduling, scripting and signing artists. 

Columbia picture would be a reasonable media institution company that would distribute our product; this picture is owned by a mainstream company ‘Sony’ which is appropriate as we have produced a mainstream opening. 

Heeral Patel – evaluation: question 2 how does your media product represent particular social groups?

  

Young blonde girls are often stereotyped as making little use of their intelligence. Similarly in our opening we have a middle class girl who is emotional unstable, weak girl who gets disturbed by the bizarre situations occurring with her.

This idea is linked back to the film ‘the hand that rocks a cradle’. Where the woman is emotional broken down after finding out her husband’s affairs therefore loses her child due to stress.

The 1992 thriller film' the hand that rocks the cradles
staring Peyton Flanders 

Maya Dolman Bowles

From our questionnaire we asked many of our volunteer what class they belonged to?Most were lower/middle class so for that reason we choose a character who’s an ordinary British girl who seems closed and vulnerable. 

• Peyton Flanders takes on a job of a nanny in order to destroy a woman’s happiness by stealing her family.
• She takes on this role as she can’t bare the trauma of miscarriage and her husband’s affair.  
•  Audience's make stereotypical views on blonde female social groups are as being less intelligent.
• Her appearance is very much similar to our character as they are both young attractive women who are mental disturbed yet unnoticeable.

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

1-The title of the film

We planned to place the title towards the end as it fitted with the shattered effect as the white vase falls on the ground where the title ‘precarious’ breaks into pieces. From our product researcher we found that the titling of the film is a key factor of symbolizing the key theme in the film therefore we choice ‘precarious’ as it means to fall or collapse . We decided to include the title on our last shot instead of a slide as it emphasis on the vase dropping and the red blood as is associated with danger  The colour black over white suggest some sort of conflict or danger which are often shown in Thrillers.

 

Our title with black font over white titles 

2-Costumes and props

In the opening sequence we have used many props linked to the storyline which helps to represent a thriller theme which we have carried out in the opening. The main colour is white which shows innocence and purity of the whole environment which contrast with the dark bed sheet colour covering the face and the bed being black, lifts the virtue of the girl.  Also the clothes worn by the girl are quite dull in colour which has no sign of patterns or designs helping us keep the white theme ongoing. Props that we used are pill box, appointment sheet, alarm clock and a vase all symbolized with the illness our character is facing. These props are good representation of the film genre as thriller conventions often use dark objects to epitomize.

The white colour of the flowers and her clothing 

An example of dark bedding which emphasis dark hidden secrets 

                        

3-Setting/location

We filmed at a house with limited location as we didn’t want to give too much detail or much of her surroundings. Using a setting such as the house makes it more realistic and showing a deep perception of the character as she is a patient. Having to film at day time for night scene we had to be really careful of the amount of light we had in our shots. To challenge this we used a bedside lamp to put a glow on her face which reduced graininess from our shots. The whiteness of the table reflects the yellow light from the lamp really well as it wasn't as bright or dull. This added an gloomy effect in the surroundings which contrasts well with the dreamy shots.

a close up shot of the blood shoulding the contrasts
of red against white floor.

4-Camera work and editing

 We wanted to show that the props we have used are symbols of the girl’s life, therefore; we pan the side table where we had the pill box and the doctor’s note. Also To show our character’s insight, for this we zoomed into her face along the side table .We have used variation of shots to emphasis the anxiety of our character.  The use of red against the white tiles puts a brighter glow on the red blood.  The use of editing: where we as the audience can see water whereas she can see blood. This is a very effective way to show that the girl is mental disturbed. 

                                  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz46qS38OgM

this is real media product which is completely different opening sequence to ours as its doesn’t reveal much of the character

 5-Title font and style 

The font ‘zapfino’, was an appropriate font for our theme because it fits in with the title precarious of clumsiness. We wanted an handwriting effect on the names of director , editor and music by , this idea was originally found on the doctor’s note we signed by hand this was an inspiration to continue this idea onto our opening. 

 This sort of font is often used in genre such as thriller or horror as it associated to mysterious themes and also makes the writing stand out.

This font is often used in Shakespeare films, this gives an old but gives an effective and professional style. 

6-Story and how the opening sets it up

The shot of the newspaper on the carpet, we used this to build up some sort of tension and how it implies to her real life. The image on the newspaper is the same as our character’s face which is abit unusual setting up a bizarre situation for our plot.

By showing our main character at the beginning of our shot, it was essential for the story which can be understandable by the audience, also to introduce a story and how it will be presented.

We used cutaway shot of the dream over a shot of a sink this highlights the abnormality of the girl.

                                    
 

  This product here shows a taxi driving on a busy night roads, which is from the drivers's point of view which suggest to the audience that the taxi plays a signification role in the film   

7-special effects

For special effects we used ‘cutaway’ this was used to create an effect of a flashback where the character 

Is laughing behind a shot of a sink containing knife this creates a atmosphere of agitated and physically disturbed character

A shot of knife under a light glow shot of the girl implies danger to the girl .

Eve Dolman-Bowles - Evaluation: Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From the preliminary task, we struggled a bit, as we concentrated a bit too much on shots, for example her walking to the place, rather than match on action or shot reverse shot, so we started again and made sure we got the right shots. We learnt from this and we used our new knowledge to know its better to have a really good quality shot rather than a long meaningless one. We also learnt how to create a realistic looking conversation between two people and how to make editing flow from one shot to the other, for instance in our full product, the protagonist wakes up from her alarm and in the background you can see her getting out of bed, we then move to a long shot, to continue her actions of getting out of bed, this creates a bigger frame and the audience can see more.

We spent a bit to long at first, with a long of progressive shots like this one, we found they were a waste of time.







Match on action creates a flow from one point to another. This is easier to portray than we expected and because of this, we used it in our full product, as we liked the effect it gave.





From our preliminary task, we also create storyboards, which made the process a lot simpler because we could refer back to it when we were filming. For our final product we did the same which also helped a lot and made it easier to create the product because we could visualise what we wanted.

I hadn't used iMovie in a awhile and the preliminary task defiantly helped me get used to things again, where things are and the effects i could create. When editing our preliminary task, we saw how simple it was to create a match on action and shot reverse shot effect. This helped us in our final product when we created a jump cut.

Eve Dolman-Bowles - Evaluation: Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

iMovie was a very helpful tool in helping us edit our product, as it it simple yet creates a great quality looking piece. We could create effects that made our thriller look a whole lot better, as it added extra feeling of suspense and fear, for instance with the knife shots.

After effects had such an impact on our product, it helped us create a more realistic looking product and we learnt to experiment with different titles and effects and the outcomes of them. At first we were a bit slow to start, learning all the tools and features, but once we practiced, we got used to it and were able to produce good results.

The use of the Camera was tricky at first, because we weren't able to film a good quality looking shot in dark light as it came out grainy. However the camera was very easy and simple to use and hold, which helped us shoot shots easily, we used the HD Canon.
We also decided we would get better results if i were to film with my camera, the Lumix GF2 HD. This created excellent looking shots in HD, which made the product look very realistic and the results were an improved from before.

Another technology we used was YouTube, this allowed us to do a lot of product Research on other thriller openings and gave us ideas about what we wanted ours to look like.
We aslo watched a lot of tutorials for after effects for our titles, this helped us a lot and we learn how to use after effects as a result also, which made it very easy to create.
YouTube also allowed us to show our products we created, such as our preliminary task, rough cut, final cut and also when experimenting with after effects


 

Here we created an idea of what we wanted our titles to look like, through youtube we were able to present this onto our blog and show our progress. Although this wasn't our final decision, it helped learn how to use after affects and the outcomes.

Eve Dolman-Bowles - Evaluation: Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Classification of 15+ was a perfect audience for us, because it
allowed us to imply a form of violence has occurred

We attracted the audience, by creating a mainstream thriller, so we could appeal to the wider audience using typical conventions of the genre.
We classified our thriller product for ages 15, we looked up what this can and cannot include. the 15 classification didnt restrict us because we wouldnt be making scenes that involved drug taking, sex or strong language.
Also we did some audience research, we created a questionnaire asking questions we really felt would help improve our product after showing our rough cut to a group of our target audience. We also got feedback about what they thought. They thought some shots were too grainy, change the clock to one that fits the genre. An example of an improvement we made from this feedback was in the bedroom scene to change the lightening, make the room darker but with a slit of light shining through the curtains onto Mayas face. So we made improvements in terms of what the audience felt would look better and what would appeal to them for a thriller genre. We also recognised faults ourselves, and took it upon ourselves to improve them, and example of one was to reshoot the dream scene to make it more recognisable that it’s a dream. 

Eve Dolman-Bowles - Evaluation: Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

We found out that the majority of people were working & middle class. The majority of the results also showed they didn't know the difference between a thriller and a horror and that they felt music was very important because it gives the thriller a sense of mystery and tension. Also that they eenjoyed the genres thrillers, horrors and comedies.

The majority of people couldn't distinguish the two genres 

Music is very important for the audience, asking this question, gave us the
idea that the audience do acknowledge music and find it very important. 

Thriller was one of the top 3 genres, this questions gave us a clear
idea of what genres people enjoyed. 

Eve Dolman-Bowles - Evaluation: Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

A media institution that would be best to distribute our product would be paramount pictures, Universal or Lionsgate as they distribute films that are mainstream, they cater for the wider audience and they use conventions of the thriller genres that people expect to see and enjoy. 

We named our media institution ‘on air productions’ as it is a conventional term, used by many mediums, such as radio & film, etc. We edited it, using after effects, to create realistic looking titles. We found a tutorial on YouTube for an effect called shine and we thought it would suit our product. 

Logos of On air productions, Paramount pictures, Universal and Lionsgate - all mainstream media instituions 

Eve dolman-Bowles - Evaluation: Question 2: Does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social group we represent in our media product is a young female. She fears what is going on in her mind, which she cannot control and is shown as weak and unstable. Blonde and attractive is a popular in this genre because it portrays as vulnerable to the audience. This is used the thriller genre a lot because the audience then fear for the girls safety. For instance in 'Birds', the actress is young an attractive and has a man to protect her from the strange and unknown, which makes her seem weak and vulnerable, because she cant deal with the events that are occurring.

In the thriller 'The Birds' Tippi is portrayed as a very sophisticated
young attractive women, however when  she comes in a situation that she is
unaware of and it creates fear for her, she cant protect herself and therefore
her man does this for her.  This makes her look weak and powerless. 

Maya is a young attractive girl,  which instantly makes her weak and powerless to the
 audience, and this is what they like to see in the thriller genre, because it mean she will struggle
and this makes the audience what to watch more, because they want to know how she battles out of it in the end. 

Eve Dolman-Bowles - Evaluation: Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our product research help us create ideas about how we wanted out media product to look like. We watched openings like Se7en and Cape Fear and they gave us an insight about the themes in the thriller genre; being unkown, uncertainity and fear. in out thriller, we used the same themes in order to create a mainstream thriller.

Special effects:

The special effects gives the overall product a very distorted atmosphere, it help links the shots together through cutaways in postproduction. The use of cutaways makes the dream look more realistic to make the audience think that the protaginist is having flashbacks. She has no control over her mind yet she is trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together as she is in shock.

We used a fast-pace edit and a glowed effect in order to precieve the view of her dreaming.



Setting:

The setting of the thriller, uses the conventions as, because from our product research, films like Donnie Darko, the setting of the film uses the protaginits house. This makes the film some what more distressing, as you don’t know what will be around the corner in your own home.We also used the protaginists house as our setting in order to make it more realistic, showing the daily routine of the protagonist. The settings within the house are the bedroom, the bathroom, hallway and kitchen. We gave these rooms quite an intense feel with the way we set up the lighting, for instance in the bedroom it has low lighting, with a slight glow to show the girl. Also in the bathroom, it was very white, harsh light, quite clinical, this is challenges the conventions as in thrillers they usually have very dull and dark lights.

The bedroom scene is dull ,but it has a slight glow from the lamp in order to let the audience see the protaginist and her expressions. 

The hallway scene has a normal atmosphere, yet the high angle creates fear. as the girl walks past the camera into the kitchen, it shows her as powerless and vulnerbale, not really knwoing whats going on. Also the high angle makes it feel like someone is watching her.

The flowers in the kitchen scene, symbolise purity and innocence of the girl, the happenings have caused her to become a strange character as we dont really know whats happening to her.

Character:

The character is a convention of the genre, the audience pity her as she has no idea what is going on in her mind. She sees the future in her dreams and then she comes back as if 

she has no recolectiona about her dream.

She is introduced to the audience, through a panning shot and is shown sleeping. It then cuts to her having a bad dream and we can see this through the use of cutaways and voiceovers. this uses the conventions because the opacity of the shots create fear and anxiety for the audience, because you cant really tell what is going on.

Throughout the introduction of the character, her identity is hidden for the majority of the shots. This is conventional of the thriller genre as they hide the identity of the person in order to make a much tense atmosphere for the audience and they dont really know who the person is.

Titles:
Our titles in our thriller use the conventions of the genre, for instance the title ‘precarious’ is revealed when the vase falls onto the floor. The letters smash at the same time the vase falls, they link together, showing the link of the title, precarious meaning unstable, the girls doesn’t have a lot of control over her mind, she feels insecure of what she will see, what her dreams will show her. The use of black, contrasts with the white floor, this is used in thrillers, as it is dull colours, nothing eye catching, but enough to notice. Black symbolising fear, white symbolising health. 

Hannah Jolley - Evaluation: Question 7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back at our preliminary task, I feel that we have developed our skills of filming and editing and overall have progressed.

In our preliminary task, we had a few shots which were well composed but some of them we didn't look in detail enough to see whether the composition of the shot was accurate.

For example, the screenshot on the right shows how in some parts of the film there are people in the background which ruins the composition of the shot.

 Although, I think some shots we did were well composed and we managed to use some conventions of a Thriller including the contrast of light and shadows. I think our storyboarding of our preliminary task wasn't detailed enough and as a group, we learnt to take more care over each shot with its length/angle etc when it came to our opening so we would get the best result.

The screenshot on the left shows how the darkness of the doors and the silhouette contrast nicely with the natural light coming from the window, creating a mysterious figure.

The screen shot on the right shows how we didn't look carefully enough at how Heeral was positioned in the shot, as part of her head is cut off. Some of the door frames also don't look straight which makes the shot look a bit out of proportion.






The still to my left shows that we managed to get a good composition in this shot of Heeral's feet, because the line of the floor is straight and her feet are pretty central in the shot.

I have learnt from this that you should always check the lines and positioning of everything within the composition of a shot to get it right and to make it look the best it can, I tried to follow this  through when filming our opening sequence as I didn't want to be disappointed with how our final footage looked when in post production.

When Heeral walks through the door and sits down, we used match on action for good continuity, I think we did this well in editing it but the sound isn't continuous when the shots cut from one to another and so when editing our final product, I wanted to make sure that any audio/soundtrack was continuous, even if we didn't include dialogue.

We used match on action here in our final product when Maya gets out of bed, I think we did this well and we learnt these useful skills when in post production of our Preliminary task, I think it flows nicely and fits well.

The strategies that were useful in our storyboarding for the real product were that we knew exactly how we wanted each shot to look, whereas with our preliminary task, we were still planning in our heads whilst filming which wasn't a good way to do it as we weren't confident in what we were filming but as we developed our planning skills, it mean that for the real product we all knew when we had filmed the shot right.

We used match on action in this shot also, but I noticed in post production that Maya puts the pills in her hand and goes to put them in her mouth with the palm of her hand but in the shot above, she is seen taking the pills with her fingers. This wasn't very noticeable to a few people I asked as audience, but it is still a slight continuity error.

These are a few screen shots of our final product where I think we have used good composition skills.