Finished thriller film

Preliminary task

Preliminary task - Evaluation

The storyline to our preliminary exercise focused on an exchange of items between two characters so both characters are placated. Maddison is eager to gain possession of a crown to serve to her master while Corey is keen to recieve a sandwich he so dearly craves in return of his efforts to provide her with the crown and therefore she is not punished by her master.

I believe our storyline could have been more stringent and better related to the thriller genre as there are some aspects of our exercise that are rather comical and the action taking place is not clearly traditional to the thriller genre. An example of this is when the character talks to the sandwich, an inanimate object which is a comical element in the scene and gives the sequence an overall comical vibe.

Moreover, I believe our group complied to the technical aspects of the assessment criteria, effectively demonstrating our understanding of continuity editing. We were able to include all of the listed editing techniques focusing on making them as efficient as possible as well as being able to execute them to a high standard.

Match on Action

We used the Match on Action editing technique within our exercise from 44 - 47 seconds where Corey walks through the door. The camera was positioned within the room while he walks out of the door placed directly opposite. I believe we executed match on action to a high standard in the sense that we made it clear that Corey was walking through the same door he previously walked out of in the last shot based on the setting on screen. Furthermore the editing of this particular sequence was effective as it matched how he opened the door and what he was carrying with him as well as his clothing being the same as the last shot. Despite this, I believe our editing could have been of a better standard in which the door is in the same position to where the last shot left off as the door is near enough closed as he walks through contrary to it being opened to greater extent when he first opened the door.

Eye Line Match

We utilised the Eye Line Match editing technique within our preliminary exercise from 48 - 51 seconds. Maddie is looking away off camera to her left to imply that her attention is fixed on a character off screen. It then becomes evident to the audience when we see Leigh placing the throne on her head in the next shot that that is what Maddie is looking at. We performed the Eye line match effectively as even though the shots of the two characters were done separately and in different locations, it still seemed as if one was looking at the other and therefore the audience believe this while watching our exercise. I believe the execution of this shot was technically accurate although the camera could have been closer on Leigh placing the crown on her head so the audience get a stronger feel of her emotions at that point in time. In addition, the camera could have been in front of Leigh instead of at the side to execute the Eye Line Match to a heightened extent as the audience would be capable of relating further to the action on screen.

Shot Reverse Shot

The Shot Reverse Shot editing technique consisted of the majority of our exercise with the main bulk of it being a conversation between the two main characters. There are some aspects of our shot reverse shot that are of an extremely high quality and others where there could be improvements. I believe the speed of our editing was effective as each sequence of our shot reverse shot was quick and efficient and there was no left over baggage time in the editing which made the conversation appear naturalistic and not too structured so the audience believe the characters are having a genuine conversation. Furthermore, the editing was performed effectively where all the action from the previous shot matched that of the next one to small detail for example, while the camera was behind Maddie at 12 seconds she looks down towards the crown on the table and then at 13 seconds the camera as changed to facing her and she places her hands on the crown as she picks it up demonstrating our understanding of continuity editing and using match on action. We could have improved our shot reverse shot by placing the camera in exactly the same position on either side of the shot so that every shot was equal however I believe this may have been hard to execute and would be time consuming so it only proves as a minor improvement we could make.

180 Degree Rule

We done well not to break the 180 degree rule within our preliminary exercise. This could have easily been done when shooting our shot reverse shot sequence if we were to place the camera at one side of the conversation and then move it round to the other in a consecutive fashion as it would have looked as if the two characters had changed position while the conversation progressed. This would make our exercise look unprofessional and of a poorer quality and therefore I believe our group done well not to break this rule while recording our short preliminary film.

Sound

We could have implemented non diegetic sound to compliment the diegetic sound within our film as this would demonstrate our understanding of editing and clarity within film. We could have used suspenseful music to play over the main conversation which would relate our exercise further to the thriller genre and make the action more effective for our audience when watching. This is something to consider when we make our final thriller to improve the quality of our work.

Overall

Overall I believe our preliminary exercise was conducted effectively to demonstrate our understanding of continuity editing. We met all the listed editing techniques on the assessment criteria to a high standard although the execution of these techniques could have been slightly better. Despite this, I believe our work has prepared us for our final thriller production and we can implement any further improvements taken from our preliminary exercise.

Evaluation question 7: Looking back at the Preliminary task, what do you think you have learned in the process from it?

While progressing from the Preliminary task to our Final Film, there were many improvements and things learned from our preliminary film to aid in the success of our final cut. These improvements range from various different factors which relate to the effectiveness of a media text. Examples of improvements and edits fall under a variety of fields, these include;

- Cinematography
- Sound
- Location
- Execution of shots
- Mise en Scene
- Editing

Camera work

From the Preliminary task, I have learned how to more effectively use the camera to enhance the dynamics of a media text. Examples of this is the use of a high angle shot to show who is the oppressed in a sequence in our final cut whereas in our preliminary exercise we did not consider camera work and cinematography to represent certain things within the media.

Furthermore, I have learned from our preliminary task, how to use a wider range of shots in order to make the media text more engaging for the audience. In our preliminary task, most of the shots where simple shot reverse shots and the duration of each shot was potentially longer than it needed to be. I have learned that through a quicker pace of editing with a wider variety of shots, especially in relation to the thriller genre, it works effectively as the audience constantly have to work in order to keep up with the action and are therefore engaged and connected to the media product to a greater extent.

Location

While progressing from our preliminary task to our final cut, I have established that a strong use of multiple locations when filming can be effective as it allows the audience to uncover these different places while they watch the film which intrigues them as they constantly want to find out what the next location will be. Also, overwhelming and bold locations are effective as it provides the "wow" factor for the audience and a good location can force them to engage with the action on screen more thoroughly. While restricted to one environment in the media text, the audience have the capacity to become tiresome and become less focused on the action.

As you can see from the screen grabs above, we restricted ourselves to one location in our preliminary task that was not that powerful when considering the conformities of the thriller genre. However, in our final cut, we used large and powerful urban settings for some of our locations and therefore, our final media product would have a greater effect and hold on our audience overall.

Storyline

I learned from my preliminary task that storyline within the thriller genre can be really effective in sustaining an audiences' attention. In our preliminary task, our storyline was very week and not particularly engaging; and we learned how this could have a huge effect on our audience in the sense that if our storyline was not strong then it does not give them a reason to continue watch our media product. Based on this, we made sure to enhance the storyline when creating our final thriller in order to capture our audience.

There were more characters within our final piece and our product as a whole was much longer than our preliminary task which meant we could develop these characters to a greater extent which made our product as a whole a step up from our preliminary task.

Mise en scene

I also learned from my preliminary task that the mise en scene has a great effect on the quality of a media product. Progressing from this, we made sure that in our final thriller we had a strong mise en scene which would get the audience questioning different things about the content of our product and to further be enthralled by the media text within it. A noticeable difference between our preliminary and our Final product in relation to the mise en scene is costume. In our preliminary, we did not value or consider the effectiveness of costume and consequently our worked lacked taste and impact where there wasn't a clear distinction between our characters through factors such as; status, class and power.

 However, in our final thriller opening, we utilised costume where the oppressed character was wearing standard clothing whereas the character with authority was wearing a smart suit which suggests he has a higher status then the casually dressed character and he obtains more power. This is a result of us feeding the stereotypes of society.

Furthermore in relation to the mise en scene advancing from our preliminary task to the final edit, there were are more diverse range of graphics on screen which was more impacting then the ones within our preliminary task. This shows that I learned that impacting sequences and pictures within the media text are important in capturing our audience, this is especially in relation to thriller genre. Examples of the contrast between the extent of the graphics within our preliminary task and our final cut can be seen below:










Editing

In progression from the preliminary task to the Final thriller, I have learnt a huge amount about editing. I played an instrumental part in the editing of our film and thus gained a variety of skills in relation to editing. First and foremost, I learnt how to effectively use final cut express in order to edit our media product which I could not do when editing our preliminary task as we used more simplistic editing software such as the editing software found on the windows set up. Based on this, in transition from our preliminary task to our final thriller, the editing within our media product improved to a much more enhanced standard.

                 





What we also took into account was the speed and style of editing within our final edit to improve its quality in comparison to our preliminary task. In our preliminary task, the speed of the editing is quite gradual and repetitive which makes the text lack taste and effect as mentioned before. Furthermore, there are no advanced transitions in our preliminary task which alter from a straight cut. This limits the effectiveness of our preliminary task as the audience are not impacted to the extent they would be if the speed and style of the editing was varied.

However, in our Final cut, the speed of our editing was varied and on many occasions unorthodox. This allows the audience to not become tiresome of the long sequences without an edit. This is very relevant in association to the thriller genre where there is a lot of fast paced action and the speed of editing is the make or break in determining how the action within the film will impact its audience. Furthermore, in our Final Cut, we stylised the editing in various different ways using advanced editing techniques such as; dissolves, cross fades and fade ins/outs. This makes the overall look of the media text more appealing for the audience as these styles give indication to many different things such as time passing. This shows that I have learnt a significant amount about editing in the progression from my preliminary task to my final thriller.

 

Sound

I have learned a great deal about sound progressing from our preliminary task to our final cut based on the fact that in our preliminary task, there was no non-diegetic sound which absolutely limits the impact that our media text has on our audience. Progressing from our preliminary task, our Final Cut entertained a strong mix of both diegetic and non diegetic sound. Both the sound effects we used in correlation with our non-diegetic music aided the impact that our media text had on our audience. We were able to identify what our preliminary task lacked in relation to sound and learned from this through placing a wide variety of sounds within our media text.

Evaluation question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Throughout the process of constructing our product, I have learnt how to set up and use various different technologies which I would not have learned if I was not developing this media product.

Blogger

Although evidently one of the easier technologies, I have learnt how to effectively use blogger in greater detail than many other technologies throughout the process. I learnt how to create blogs to present written information that can all be stored in one place. Despite this, I learned that information can be presented in many different ways on the blogger set up such as importing pictures from different places on the internet from sources such as Google. More advanced factors of this technology is the ability to embed videos from around the web onto a blog post which again shows the efficiency of blogger where multiple videos can be stored in one place.

Cameras

During the process, me and my team used a digital video camera in order to capture the content within our film and utilised this technology for factors such as the animatic for our storyboard. Before this process, I did not use video cameras and thus it has allowed me to engage more with digital technology where I am now confident in using the different functions of the camera and being capable of recording film sequences by myself and further importing them onto a computer and making necessary edits where need be using different technologies on the computer.

Final Cut Express

Final Cut express was similar to blogger in the sense that it was one of the most used technologies used throughout the process of developing our media product. While doing our research and practice for our final film we used Final Cut to edit preliminary work focusing on specific aspects of Film e.g. sound, cinematography and mise en scene. We further used Final Cut to edit our final film and input all necessary features of our product to make it make it the best it can possibly be. I can admit to enjoying learning and using Final Cut because it has allowed me to gain skills in editing which I did not have before the use of this specific technology.

Popplett

I learned how to use Popplett throughout the evaluation of our media product where I used it to present information on one of the evaluation questions. I found that Popplett was effective as it allowed me to clearly present the information in a structured way that external viewers would be able to understand the content easily without confusion. Another positive aspect of this technolog is that its simplicity will allow me to use it in other aspects of life such as revision for my examinations.

Youtube

Although my first encounter with this specific technology did not come from the process of developing our media product, various features of this technology I have learned to use over the course of making our film. When researching into the thriller genre I learned how to embed videos from youtube to different places around the internet such as blogger. This is an effective tool on this technology as it allows people to see videos such as our final media product simply on my blog and not have to go and search for it around the web. This means that this technology is a enhancer of efficiency when on the web.

Exam Time

Similar to Popplett, I learned how to use the Exam Time technology to present information in an efficient and easy way to prevent confusion and a continuance of bulky paragraphs that can become tiresome and tedious to read and can appear quite dull. Again similar to the popplett technology, exam time can be an effective technology to use in other aspects of life again like revision for exams.

Evaluation question 5: How did you attract your audience's attention?

My group attracted our audiences' attention in various different ways through the use of our media product. We made certain that we considered factors from the previous question in relation to who our audience is and also general aspects of the film world; taking into account what makes a good film. There are different conventions of the thriller genre used in our opening. This is effective in attracting our audience as it allows them to identify it as a mysterious and conspiracy thriller which instantaneously engages their human instincts to solve problems and uncover truths. As well as this, other features of our film such as; characters, locations and narrative are all utilised to attract our audiences' attention.

How does our thriller hold the audiences attention?

An abnormal situation as an instant opening

The first visuals for our audience is a blooded character strapped to a chair partnered with a pulsing heartbeat in an abandoned looking setting which instantly engages the audience where they begin questioning different things in relation to our film. Examples of the enigmas sparked within our audience are; how the character got there, why the character is there, who has placed him there, and what he has done that has resulted in him being there. This shows that we have immediately attracted our audience through exploiting their human instincts to question and solve this type of scenario in order for them to have full knowledge of the circumstances of the situation.

However, on evaluating the visual content of our film, I believe that through a compilation of multiple shots of this character strapped to the chair from a variety of different angles, accompanied with cinematic booms for each shot, we could have supplemented the attraction we have on our audience with impact so that their intrigue is to an even more heightened degree. This would be something to consider if we were going to remake our film or could work as an improvement for future work.

McGuffin

Another technique used to attract our audience is the immediate introduction of the McGuffin which is the envelope in our media product. Similar to the very opening of our film, this conjures up different enigmas about our film. The audience automatically question what could be the content within the envelope, why the envelope is relevant, who is "VOODOR," and what the motives are of the person who has the envelope. This attracts the audience as they become involved in the film and are beginning to follow the envelope in relation to what effect it has on the character who is given it in our opening. Furthermore, the fact that in our opening the character who is given the envelope views its contents but the audience do not get to, makes them eager to find out what the contents are and instantly provides reason for them to continue viewing our film.

Locations

We attracted our audience by using well known locations such as Canary Wharf. The audience are interested in locations such as this as it gets them thinking about different factors such as formal business being conducted, and the massiveness of the buildings envelopes the audience while present on the screen where they can feel overwhelmed. Also, based on research on thriller genre and of our audience, it is clear that the use of modern, urban settings such as this in thriller films works as a success where the thriller genre is the most known genre to utilise Urban settings such as this. Furthermore, using well known places such as this allows the audience to clearly identify the location of the action as they are most likely to know that Canary Wharf is in London.

Characters

Based on our audience research, we knew that our main target audience was predominately males and thus the three opening characters within our media text were all male; with a planned introduction of a female star later on in our film to appeal to a wider audience with love interest as well as sex appeal, and thus exploiting human nature. However, focusing on the majority of our audience which are young adult males, we attracted our audience by introducing three different male characters and this would attract our audience because there is a strong chance that the people making up our audience could relate to one of these characters and as a result attracts them to watch the rest of the film.

 

Movie Night

At our school, me and my group held a preview night where we gathered a congregation of students to watch a blockbuster film although we showed them our opening before the film started in order for them to give feedback about what they thought. However, we saw this as an opportunity to attract our audience to our film where they begin to question if we will be turning it into a full piece of media to produce, exhibit and distribute.

Social media

We further used social networking to attract our audience by uploading our film to different social networking sites used heavily by our young generation. This helped attract our audience as they were able to view our product without going to great extents to do so as we placed it on sources that our audience members are most likely to use in everyday life.

Evaluation question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?

Evaluation question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation question 2 : How does your media product represent particular social groups?

HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

by michael_rhodes97

Evaluation question 1: In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In our created media product "Animus," we were able to include many forms and conventions of real media products which overall helped to attain a healthy and strong piece of media text.


Mcguffin

This was the mcguffin of our media product based on the fact that this envelope worked as the main source to drive the storyline and create action and thus allowing it to occur throughout our film opening. This was effective because our audience were focused on the action based on the movement and location of our media product in our film.

Relation to real films

Psycho

Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) uses an envelope as a mcguffin which shows how our media product correlates with real films. I also believe that through this decision of using an envelope as a mcguffin, it helped the strength of our media product because it is a very effective mcguffin used in world known greats such as Psycho. 

Suspense

The opening of our media product exposes the audience to tension and suspense with the first shot of a man strapped to a chair, bloody and in an abandoned scrap yard. This is effective and suspenseful because the audience develop a feeling of not being in control and are instantaneously fearful and worried for the man in the chair as it appears that he is a bad place. Furthermore, the high angle shot corresponded with the frantic heartbeat creates the idea that the man in the chair is oppressed and smothered by negativity and doom.

Relation to real films

Casino Royale

In Casino Royale, James Bond is strapped to a chair and is being tortured by the villain. This shows that our media product is inspired by specific features of real films such as Casino Royale. My group believed this to be very effective as being trapped in a chair shows a clear distinction between power and status within the media text and thus the audience can clearly identify these factors which can induce empathy into them as a result.

Setting

This setting of Canary wharf is typical of the thriller genre with it's Urban and modernised structure. It is effective as the look of the building is overwhelming and enveloping to the audience. The audience place various factors together such as the juxtaposition of the suit one man is wearing and the big coat and casual clothes the other is wearing and with the tall business like buildings in the background, the audience get a sense of the white collar with a twang of blue colllar crime as features of the film.

Relation to real films

This is a source of real media text that captures the same stylised setting that we have in our media product. The background in this sequence is dominated by the prescence of a huge and modernised building making the audience understand that the action is taking place in an up to date and modernised enviroment. Also, the low angle structure of the image makes the audience feel oppressed and overwhelmed by the setting.

Black & White/ Low Key Lighting

When the so called villain, Alex is talking to his boss, we used a blacked out setting with low key lighting to create the mysterious and serious atmosphere which reflects the content of their discussion. This is effective as the audience can understand instantaneously that this character is not of good nature in will be the source of problems for our hero to overcome throughout the film.

Relation to real films

Casino Royale

In Casino Royale, the opening sequence is held in a office using low key lighting and the discussion the two men are having is formal and secret like the conversation in our media product. Both this sequence and the sequence from our media product use low key lighting to aid the idea of mystery and secretism in what the characters in the scene are conversating about. This demonstrates the elements from our product that relates strongly to the features of real media products.

Rough cut

Analysis and Justification of film title

Within our group, there was debate about the appropiate name for our film. Originally, we had planned to call the film Pursuit; this is because the remainder of our film is based on Trevor's (the character who died in our opening) brother being in "pursuit" of the people that did this to his twin brother. Therefore, this would be an effective and clear title and relates well to the content of our film.

However, in the process of filming and developing our production, the idea that Trevor's brther John would be extremely angered and not feel remorse towards his brothers killers made us as though our title should be dedicated to his characters feelings instead of his actions. Therefore, we began to search around for words that could demonstrate feelings of hatred towards a group of people yet still have the same amount of appeal to our audience and the thriller genre.

Primarily, we established two titles Revenge & game of hate. We believed these to be effective titles based on the fact that John is clearly out for revenge of the people that did this to his brother and game of hate symbolises John's attempt to find these killers relating to the word game and hate lies in the idea that John hates these people as his motives are to hunt them down and ultimately take their lives. However, we believed these titles to be rather simplistic after discussion and felt that we could improve the complexity and increase curiosity within our audience with titles that they might not have come across before. Also, we realised that these titles as well as Pursuit did not relate to the feelings of our main character John.

This is when we began to debate the titles Rancour and Animus. We were understanding that people may not have heard of these words before and thus would increase intruge within our audience where they can research the words and then relate the meaning to the content of the film. Having the similar meanings of, "A feeling of ill will arousing active hostility," both words are relevant to the content of our film where John feels ill will towards his brother's killers and arousing active hostility is a reflection of his actions.  We concluded that both these titles were strong and effective in relation to our media production.

We then conducted a group vote and 2 of us out of 3 prefered Animus to Rancour based the pronounciation of the word and how it sounds and thus we proceeded and named our film Animus.

Overall, I believe this to be a very effective title and believe it justifies the content and storyline of our media product.

Analysis of Sound effects chosen

Sound for our ident and title sequence

                                                    

The sound chosen for our ident and beginning titles was a source of ambient music. It was effective in the sense that it related well to the graphics of our ident image with the sequence of slowly moving clouds in the background as the peaceful yet mysterious music plays over the top. These factors correlate well with each other through the way the clouds manoeuvre in the image. This music continues to play over the beginning titles of our media product which is helpful in the sense that the typewriter format of our titles reflect that of the music.

 

Sound for our opening image

 

 

The sound playing over the top of this shot was effective as it is a fast and booming heartbeat which mirrors the mise en scene in the shot which shows desolation and a lack of control which is normally the case when there is a pacing heartbeat. Furthermore, the heartbeat relates to the character tied to the chair as they would be panicked and confused in the state that they're in. This demonstrates how the use of the heartbeat was effective. In addition, the companionship within the high angle shot type and the heart beat suggests something closing down onto the character in the chair which would explain the increase in the heart beat.

 

In contrary, I think there are other sound effects that could have made this sequence even more impacting such as a series of cinematic booms in correspondence with multiple shots of the character in the chair. Also, as well as just a heartbeat, we could have used music that would add to the menacing aspects of the situation Trevor is in and thus causing creater anxiety and tension within the audience.

 







 

At this part of our film, there are visuals of Alex and Trevor interacting near canary wharf and it clearly shows Alex handing the "package" to Trevor. Based on factors such as the wind and external sounds, we decided to mute the audio recorded on our camera and instead played suspenseful music over the action which helps it move along quickly to save time in our production and avoids dodgy diegetic audio of the two characters speaking.

 



 



 

 

Throughout this sequence of our film, the suspenseful music picked up the pace and became more impacting which correlated with the pace of the editing increasing. This was effective as it creates the idea that the action is building up to something and a greater event is on the horizon and about to take place.

 

 



This final segment of our film is very effective as the suspenseful music previously playing declines very rapidly and as there is a cross fade between Trevor walking and future Trevor tied up in the chair. The diegetic sound of Trevor breathing frantically and being panicked companioned with the return of the pacing heartbeat makes the audience feel anxious and uneasy and mirror these frantic feelings of Trevor, especially with the sight of the gun held to his head. As the screen then turns black, and the sound of a gunshot is abruptly heard, the audience can infer what has happened to Trevor.

 

 

 



 

 

Making our ident





Making our Ident

 

Preliminary

 

 



 

Following our decision of "Black Cloud Media" as the title for our production company, we began by searching on YouTube for sequences of clouds to be the bulk of our ident as the image and visuals of the sequence. At first we came across this motion picture sequence that we believed would be effective in relation to our company name.

 



The dark style and layout of the clouds in this video background relates well to the name of our production company and therefore we believed that we would proceed with this as the background to our ident. However, after a few more searches, we came across another sequence which we believed after editing would be even more effective and impacting if used as our ident.



However, we believed that the light ratio in this motion picture would be better if the clouds appeared darker which would more strongly relate to the name of our ident.This is when we found the moving image in our used ident as a Giff which we downloaded into Photoshop and edited in with our production company name text. We decided that this was efficient and sensible as the clouds in the motion picture were black and therefore mirrored the title. Furthermore, there was a gap in between the clouds where the text in our ident could eventually rise to from the bottom so that our audience have the chance to view it clearly before our main film actually begins.