Evaluation (Andy)

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media?

Our media product incorporates generic conventions such as lighting and the relation to tense build ups. We achieved the certain lighting by placing our shots underneath lampposts places in the street. This would much easier than using our own artificial lighting sources. We did have to use a flashlight for two of the shots though as the scene was visible but just not right to fit with the generic conventions of a thriller. The suspense of a thriller was achieved by using a soundtrack which built up with an increasing texture as the track progressed.

Our subgenre would definitely be towards the action side of it. This is shown in the clip with the “drum and bass” sound track used. Also the running scene through the streets give it the fast paced quality of an action film.

This is part of our opening scene where we see a detective writing a report. This is similar to the opening scene of one of our influential films seven.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social groups involved in our thriller are very much the young teen age. The character involved in the running scene represents a young teen out late at night wearing classic teen clothes. Where as in the opening office scene the class is raised and age group increased to a mid/late life character playing the detective. There is no real representation of race or gender. As both of the characters used in the clip are male there can be no comparison of male dominance or female passiveness. Although w

e can see that the detective is a high class important man with the gun and classic smart dress and hat. These representations of gender, age and class could possibly link to our target audience of young and middle aged people as they are involved in the thriller piece. The long haired teen represents a stereotypical teenager rebelling to society ever so slightly.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I can visualise this thriller piece being shown in cinemas and perhaps be a Hollywood production. This could hopefully let the production be as successful as it could possibly be which what every director wants. It isn’t unique as a type of film as it has the fast paced, tension building qualities of many other films in the industry. It could be a TV movie but only following a cinema release first. The potential film offers a lot for things such as fra

nchises, merchandise and possibly sequels as the film itself includes certain props such as guns which could be recreated as merchandise. Plus the story line itself allows there to be a potential sequel as the threat in the actual film could easily come back and wreak more havoc! This does not seem a likely thing to happen though as it is rare for sequels to be made on thriller films

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The age and gender of our target audience is set around young adult and adult males and females. We can link this to our product with the young teen character used in the piece. Also the drum and bass music will suit more young adults and teens as it is a

recent modern genre of music.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience with the opening scene of the murder investigation under way. This added with the beginning parts of the soundtrack entices the audience and build up tension which naturally makes the viewers want to see more. The camera angles used in the opening scene are always hiding his face. This can also entice people in as you m

ay eventually find out who the character is and what he looks like drawing in the viewer. In the film we are allowing the audience to see what happens without any character in the film actually knowing by showing the audience the actual murder scene. This has impact as throughout the film the audience will always know more than the characters giving the option for concern for the character from the audience to happen. The camera angles used relate to the lighting used as well which creates suspense.

This is a picture of keys being dropped in the film. This is a vital part of the act as he will find later that he needs them. And if he did not drop them his life would have been spared. We used a complete different shot to emphasize this.

What have you learnt about new technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The equipment we used was mediocre but certainly acceptable for what we wanted to achieve in our media piece. I wasn't completely pleased with the lighting and how the camera coped with lighting but our media studies centre has a budget they need to stick to. Final cut express is the program we used to edit our clips. This was completely new to me before I started using it. I eventually picked it up after playing around with it for the preliminary task. I already knew how to use a camera to its basics which is all I needed for the filming process. I used Cubase 4 to compose our media soundtrack. This was not really new for me as I have used cubase many times before and was quite easy to make a soundtrack. Using the screen snaps we did we could achieve our desired mise en scene plus we also edited the brightness and contrast of the clips to enhance our desired mise en scene.

Here is a screenshot of our added font to the actual video. We did this on final cut express easily. The font we used was an add on which we downloaded from the internet. We wanted the text to be visible (so we made it white) but yet discreet which explains the lack of dominance on the shot.

Jack | Evaluation

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

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Our thriller incorporated generic conventions due to certain methods we used. For example, our thriller has an antagonist and a protagonist. This is widely associated as a thriller convention. Our outdoor scenes, where you see the victim running, are set at night. We felt this suits the thriller genre well as a running scene during daylight, may not have been as effective, or thrilling. During the chase, you can hear the sound of footsteps. Our thriller challenges the “protagonist/ antagonist” convention as we don’t actually see the antagonist it is just implied. If our thriller were to have a sub-genre, it would definitely be action. The running-chase scene is very fast-paced and exhilarating and could easily be classed as an action film.

The film Se7en influenced us. Both our opening scenes involve a character at a desk writing. We liked this film and so it inspired us to do something similar.

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How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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In our thriller, we only included very few characters and so could not cover a wide range of different social groups. Our main character is a white, middle-class male investigator in his thirties. Our victim is again white, middle-class but a teenager. The last character in our film is the antagonist, who the audience doesn’t see, but presume it is the one chasing the victim. Gender is not represented in a stereotypical way as our thriller only includes males. In which are the victim and protagonist. You see the male victim running away from something and a shot of him at the end in fear. This challenges the stereotypical view that men are dominant.

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What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

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Our movie could potentially make it on the big screens being produced by a large Hollywood organisation. Sometime after its cinema release, it would be shown on the television. The film could potentially follow on to a sequel depending on how successful the original film is. This could work as thrillers aren’t often associated as having sequels and so it would be exceptional. Also, dependant on the factor of its success, it could lead to the merchandising of products such as posters, t-shirts, memorabilia, character figures and video games. Our film is similar to other existing products by adopting thriller conventions, which other products use. In conclusion we can gather that our film has a dark yet upbeat mise en scene, having a disturbing feel to our film, we can see this from the chase and our use of camera work with dark lighting.

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Who would be the audience for your media product?

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With a group decision, we certified our thriller to be a 15. Although setting a young adult demographic of 18-25. We feel our media product is suitable for 15 year olds, but more 18+ people would want to watch it. During the opening, no violent or unpleasant scenes are shown, and therefore it could be classed as a 12 or 12A. We did this on purpose to create suspense, and, to not give too much away during the beginning. So we certified our thriller as a 15 because there would have been violent/ unpleasant scenes in the later stages of the film. This would be unsuitable for 12 year olds.

A film similar to ours is Se7en. The only part I can compare similarities is the opening, where you can see a person sitting at a desk writing. Se7en’s certificate is an 18. So evidently is aimed at ages 18+. Similar to our audience, however we certified ours leniently.

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How did you attract/ address your audience?

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We addressed our thriller to all genders, of those that are aged 15 and over. We chose this decision as spectators of our movie, who were of all genders and aged 15+ agreed. The beginning scene where the camera pans across the newspaper creates an eerie feel. This could particularly frighten young children.



Also the ending scene, where the victim runs into a dead-end and screams, could terrify a youth.



The audience may feel as though they take part as a spectator of the victim’s life. At the ending, where the victim runs into a dead-end, the audience see's the victim, but not what the victim sees. This means that they don’t put themselves in the position of the victim, but the spectator of the victim, possibly through the eyes of what the victim is facing. At the end, we used a close up and it displayed the fear in the victims face and body.

We made our piece suspenseful by building it, to breaking it down. To elaborate; throughout the film you see the victim running to a fast-paced soundtrack and then at the end, when the victim finds himself in a dead-end, the music stops frantically. This adds to the climax of the suspense.

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What have you learnt about technologies from the progress of constructing this product?

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Not blaming our equipment but I felt that the cameras let us down. The cameras we used are not great at capturing light, especially at night, when light is limited. However, a strong point of the camera equipment is the usability. I found the camera easy to use, and to set up on the tripod.
After our first time filming, we realised it was too dark and the footage was inadequate. So we filmed it again when the skies were lighter. This created a problem for us as it was time consuming. Another problem we faced, which was more of an annoyance, was that some of our footage somehow got overwritten, so we had to re-film it.

As for new experiences, I had never used an iMac before I took up Media Studies. It took some time getting used to, but now I can fluently use a Mac. I also used Final Cut Express for the first time. I had done some video editing pre-sixth form using Sony Vegas so it was an intriguing experience using a different program. Final Cut Express enhanced our thriller to make it look more professional-like. I found the Fade In Fade Out effect most useful as it gave a simple but effective result that could be applied to any form of media, such as text and video.



(Apologies for bad quality)



My group and I did not use Garage Band to create our soundtrack. However a fellow group member used the program Cubase to create the soundtrack.

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Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

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Before we made our thriller we researched into thrillers. We watched opening title scenes to analyse how thrillers are made, what techniques and camera shots are used, and to expand on our knowledge of the genre. We made several storyboards displaying our thriller in detail by drawing out the exact shots and locations that were going to be used. We planned to film our thriller shots in the order they occurred. When we came round to editing, it was much easier and simpler.

When doing the preliminary task, we only used a couple of shots. So I think my use of shot types has improved, as in the thriller, we used close ups, medium shots, an establishing shot:



And also a match on action shot:



I feel much more confident with the equipment now than I did in the preliminary task. I wasn’t very confident with using the camera before and I wasn’t too sure which buttons did what. Now though, I am more certain and knowledgeable about the camera and equipment.

Thriller definition: “a book, film, play, etc., depicting crime, mystery, or espionage in an atmosphere of excitement and suspense”. I feel as though we achieved this as we used certain techniques in order to create suspense. Also I feel as though our movie is very exciting with the fast paced running scene synchronizing to the matching soundtrack. So in conclusion, I feel our end product successfully fulfilled the initial task of creating a thriller opening.

Will | Evaluation

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

In our piece we did our best to bear in mind a lot of the typical conventions of a thriller, like a slow paced story with plenty of twists and turns. We also hinted at an Antagonist at the very end of our piece

After drawing up the storyboard we decided that we were going to use a lot of fast paced, quick cuts for a lot of different angles in order to build and hold a higher level of tension and suspense for the audience. That way, when the music stopped at the end of the piece and the camera stopped moving there would be a very tense feeling of anticipation for the very last scene of the introduction. I think that the main way our piece challenges traditional conventions is through its soundtrack. It's very rare to have such a fast paced soundtrack for a film such as a thriller. The idea was to give as little information about the rest of the movie as possible but still try to keep the viewer engaged. The loud, fast soundtrack definitely places our piece as a more action oriented thriller. I felt that there was a little influence from films like "Se7en" in our piece, like the camera panning across the table littered with snippets of information.

How does your media product represent certain social groups

As far as our introduction goes you only really see middle class Caucasian males. We only had male group members and our storyboard didn't involve any female characters in the introduction. However, this could appeal to our target audience due to the audience simply being able to relate to the characters on screen in terms of social class. The piece is set in and around Newport. A village filled with mostly middle class citizens and would therefore be representing a perhaps typical rural location in England.


What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Ideally, our film would be suited to a mainstream cinema release, featuring a mildly well-known cast and a slightly better than average budget. The kind of movie that is released in the cinema and then several months later goes to DVD for the masses to purchase. This would make it more accessible to consumers of all types, instead of JUST the target audience. It could potentially have a sequel, but that would depend on the success of the film and the overall plotline. I can see it being very hard to make a sequel for a thriller movie due to all of the plot twists and turns that it takes during the course of the movie and if anyone had not already seen the first film then the chances are that they would be lost upon watching the sequel. There might also be a chance for a spinoff novel to appeal to fans who like to read. We are hoping that the film would be quite well received so that merchandising can begin and more money can be made by appealing to audiences of all ages instead of just the 15 and over mark.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience was to be 15 year old and older members of both genders. This would mean that the plot line could be as rich and inventive as possible without having to cater for a less imaginative or less interested younger audience. Obviously aiming for the sort of audience with enough disposable income to spend on a trip to the cinema and also an audience sophisticated enough to respect and acknowledge the subtleties that a thriller movie implies.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I thought that there were a few points in our intro that would appeal to this audience. First of all would be the intriguing pan across the desk to reveal the newspaper, second would be the fast paced, loud running scene with he tense ending. We used a series of quick cuts that jump from location to location to build suspense and to look like a very fast paced scene. We decided that these quick shots would place the audience in the position of a spectator, viewing the events without any prior knowledge. This would add to the fast paced aspect of the scene but also builds the viewer's interest as to the previous events of the story.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I learnt that operating a camera with insufficient light is a nigh impossible task, and that using tape cameras instead of USB or memory stick ones is a very unreliable way of filming. The main problem that we faced was the lack of light and no way to produce it. We tried using quite a high powered torch but it still had almost no effect whatsoever on the quality of light on the finished product. Using final cut express was a new challenge for me as I'd previously had no encounters with editing software before. After I’d got to grips with the basics though I became relatively adept at cutting and placing scenes and sound. We also used visual effects such as simply cutting to black or using a fade to build suspense. For our soundtrack, we didn't use Garageband; we used Cubase instead, as we had previous experience with it.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product

The planning stage was more difficult than I thought it would be. I watched several celebrated thriller films such as Se7en, One hour photo and (my favourite) Memento. There were definite similarities in style between all of them and we tried to use these to our benefit. I was the one who wrote the storyboard that we used for our final piece and in I am very pleased with how it turned out because my vision was almost perfectly recreated. I knew what kind of movement and shots I wanted and how quickly everything would need to be and I feel that we did as well as we could. During our first film shoot, we decided that the shots we were using weren't good enough, and that they could be improved. The second time around we improved the previous shots and then added a few new ones in, such as the key dropping shot; to add to the mood.

After this project I definitely feel much more confident with the Apple Macs, cameras and the use of final cut express. All in all, I think that the filming and editing aspect of our piece went very well indeed, and we're all quite happy with the final product. I am aware however, that our blog was indeed lacking in quantity of posts and that there is no remedy for this.

Overall, I think we started out slowly but eventually we managed to get out piece to the standard that we require.

The evaluation begins!

We're now beginning the evaluation stage of our coursework.

We believe that the filming went reasonably well although obviously the lighting could have been better but given the circumstances this wasn't really in our control

Anyways, enough of the evaluation chit-chat! wish us luck!

Project update!

We managed to completely finish off the film part of our media project on the editing day that we took on friday! We're quite happy with the result and very happy to be the first group in the year to have completely finished and exported our piece! Now comes the evaluation phase of the work but we're confident that we'll be able to do quite well on this part!

Quick Update

Jack and I (Will) went out and did all of the filming for the outside scenes today. We took multiple takes of every shot and we're satisfied with them. We will begin editing tomorrow.

Update..

QUALITY CONTROL! Is what we are about, therefore we are re-filming! Tonight, me (Jack) and Will are going to film the outdoor scene. On Wednesday Will and Andy are going to film the indoor scene.

Group Discussion Update

Andy-OK. So we did like filming stuff, I.e The office scene and our running shots. But! Our office scene was deleted somehow on the camera so we cannot upload any samples from that. We have our running shots buts we want to redo them as there is not enough light in them so the camera is struggling to handle the lack of light. So were going to redo them in the near future. After we have done all the shots again with adjusted lighting we will try and upload some samples to the blog. A lesson has been learnt.

Jack-We are looking to film on monday (15/02). With our previous experience we should be more efficient this time round.

Will- hey

Music with video

I am currently working on our thriller soundtrack on Cubase 4 at school and home. I have the main structure and a thorough idea of the sound track but wish to attempt to synchronize it with our actual film footage. Obviously this can only be done when the filming has finished. I can use cubase to do this. And by synchronizing I mean maybe clashes or staccato hits when a head is turned side to side e.t.c.

Reminisce on last nights filming

We didn't finish all our filming but we done some.

We recorded the office scene which was actually going to be used in our thriller, however somehow it got overwritten.

All of the outside scenes probably need retaking. The light was OK however we needed more of it. So next time we will bring torches, flashlights etc..

When I get home I will try and upload what we achieved.

Filming Timetable

4.00- Organize Office ready for filming. i. e Lighting, Prop positioning and Health and safety issues.
4.30- Start filming first scene taking 3 takes of each shot. look through shots.
5.30- Organize outside scenes. E.g health and safety.
6.00- Film at least 3 takes of each shot. We will be filming outside as it will be darker and suits our needs.
7.00- Look through shots.

Movie so far!

Last time I showed the candidate part of the movie, but we have progressed and here is the beginning of the title credits:

Filming!!

We are hoping to film tonight in newport. We would be more than happy if we could do it all tonight. We are signing one of the school cameras out and will be hopefully returning it in the next week or two :)

So then.

Obviously I'm not satisfied with the quality of the pictures, and the way Blogger does things is beyond me, I can't figure out how to change the orientation of the previous post, but there are one or two pictures there that do us some justice, so don't give up on us yet :)

Recce Shots!

Right, just went out and suffered the cold for a little bit to get these shots done, I've been meaning to do it all weekend but stuff kept getting in the way :) Because of Blogger's quite frankly SILLY way of doing things I'll have to get Jack to sort out this picture layout, but for now these are four of the shot's we'll be using, NOT in chronological order (Thank you Blogger)

Pre-recce-shot info

Will here!
I'm going to wait for it to get dark this evening and go out to take all of the shots that I drew on our storyboard. I'll be taking the pictures via the camera on my phone because in honesty I don't own a digital camera with a better camera than my phone. My phone uses an 8 Megapixel camera anyway, so it shouldn't be that bad.
anyway, Those should be up here at some point tonight, provided that my laptop functions smoothly.

Title ideas! Part 2..

Using relevant pictures, (as we have not filmed yet or taken pictures of our location), I have created some title credits using pictures of alleyways and street roads (like what will be in our film).

Like the title credits for Panic Room, I tried integrating the text into the background/ environment. I used my name as a template:





With some text opacity editing:





I think this gives a nicer effect then the text just appearing on a black background or even just appearing on the shot. However this could be difficult to do.

Title ideas!

We have decided how the beginning titles will appear ("Pluto Pictures" and "a JAW production").

But we haven't discussed how the other titles will appear (our names; "Will Shaw", "Jack.." etc.. and possibily "produced by.." etc.)

I love the concept of the titles being integrated within the movie instead of appearing on a black background. Like the opening credits to Panic Room:



I like how the titles integrate with the enviroment/ background. The text's style is similar to the buildings and I also like how the text is positioned at the same angle as the buildings.

I am going to have a go on photoshop to create a similar effect and will post it up later.

Character codes.

Antagonist (Jack):
A very mysterious figure. Very little information is given about this character. A methodical killer that is focused on killing for a reason. A confident killer that knows what he is doing.

Victim (Will):
A boisterous young man that is up to date with modern times. A socialistic character that has an interest in rock music. Finds himself in a difficult situation where you can see his real personality - fear.

Protagonist (Andrew):
A sophisticated investigator that has the history to show he is capable of catching the killer. A very traditional and stereotypical investigator that works hard and will do anything to complete the job.

Storyboard uploaded!

(Click on the pictures to maximise them)

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4)

Logo Update

We have discovered that our "Pluto Pictures" picture is not royalty free so we need to change it to a royalty free appropriate picture. This will be uploaded at a later date.

Lighting ideas

We mostly planned everything out well.

While making the story board I Placed all of the shots strategically, so that all of the action (if any) would happen underneath street lamps. For any places that require slightly more light we will use will's brothers car headlights at the appropriate levels to give the light we need.

I made the beginning of our movie where it just displays the schools centre number and our groups candidate numbers.

I uploaded it to blogger:

I added a simple fade transition to minimize the dullness.

Storyboarding

Today I have taken pictures of the storyboard and I will upload it when I'm home.

I will edit this post with the pictures later.

Hello

Just posting to let you know we are on our way to catching up and being completely comfortable with our time period. All is good dont fret!

Ideas for title opening

I made some "logos" using photoshop to display as titles in the beginning of our opening in our thriller. We decided to invent fake but plausable movie companys: "Pluto Pictures" and "Jaw Productions". So I made these simple logos that we could display instead of text:






(The logos would be seperate images)

Changes in narrative

We have decided to change a few things in our narrative in conjunction with our earlier narrative post. We will not have credits shown on an actual envelope in the opening scene as we think this will cause a dip in the intensity of a thriller by creating a slightly more humorous context. The credits will just show as text like the other credits.

The other change we have decided to make is the transition between The first scene and the second made to be two days earlier. We were going to just have text at the bottom saying two days earlier but instead we will use a transition to show this subliminally. By using a picture of the victim on the investigators desk we can show that he is the subject being thought about. This will then blend in with the other scene of The Victim running.

Font for title

Based on a group decision we have chosen the font: Evanescent.

It looks like this:

Health And Safety

Health and safety is vital in our media piece as we are running through streets where cars are a threat. Obviously we do not want to be in any danger throughout our filming process from cars or any other moving vehicles. To prevent this from happening we will have people marking either side and center of the roads we are currently producing our thriller opening. This should prevent any accident happening. There is also a scene where i am writing a letter. There is also a danger from our actor Will tripping as he is running through the street. To prevent this happening we will have someone checking dangers i.e shoelaces are done up tightly and there are no objects/substances on his running way that could cause slippage/tripping.

Just a Quickie

I intend to watch the film "Memento" at some point soon. I downloaded it because i saw that it was number one on someone's top ten list of thrilller films. it sounds good, so I'm looking forward to it :)

Storyboard writeup

I'm just going to quickly write up the storyboard in detail.

We start by seeing a had writing a letter. The letter isn't so important but the viewer should take note of what else will be on the desk, a police badge, a firearm and newspaper articles that allude to a recent murder. We will see a bird's eye view of the desk a little to the right of the character. He will throw a letter onto the desk and Ideally it Will have some opening credits written on it. We will then cut to a shot from behind the chair at the desk and slowly zoom out as the character in the chair gets up and walks out of the door behind the camera.
The next shot is of the pavement at an empty street. the words "2 days earlier" will appear on the screen before someone runs from left to right. A series of shots follow this person as they run all the way down the street, stop at the and and then turn down another street. we are given to believe that they are being followed as there are one or two shots where there are trace elements of pursuer appearing on camera before it cuts to the next shot. The running figure turns a corner and then another and goes through an alley. They run through this alley and come to a garage. They bang on the garage door in desperation and then see if they can lift the door and they can. The camera follows them through the garage and into a back garden (this would be my brother's garden). They pound on the patio door and shout "HELLO?!" before giving up and bolting through the garden gate. In front of the house there is a green and they run across this and down another alley. Turning another corner they are confronted by a dead end. for the first time we see the runner's face clearly as car Headlights illumate him entirely. At first he raises a hand to shield his eyes from the light but then fumbles a firearm out of his trousers. He shouts something along the line of "You Won't take me too!", turns the gun to his head, closes his eyes, begins to scream. A gunshot is heard as teh screen cuts to black, at which point the title will slowly fade onto the screen.

A quick update.

I'm just about to ring the other 2 members of the group and speak to them about when we can start filming. I was hoping that we might start filming this coming weekend, although it depends entirely on whether everyone's available or not.

Title for our thriller! (And credits)

Title name

We've decided to call our film "Acronychal". Which is an adjective for occurring at nightfall. This fits rather nicely with the content of our thriller introduction as it is all set at night.

Credits

(in order)

Pluto Pictures presents..

A JAW Production..

Acronychal

Target audience

"In marketing and advertising, a target audience, or target group is the primary group of people that something, usually an advertising campaign, is aimed at appealing to."

We are going to aim our thriller at the 15 + audience. This is because although we are only doing an opening, if the target audience is of a high age it may show that our film is scarier and more thrilling. The majority of thrillers are aimed at 15 and over, so we want to create an "authentic as possible" scene.

Update! Storyboard complete.

The story board is now complete! In this post will contain information on props, lighting, sound, location, cast list etc..

Props

Handgun - Realistic BB gun

Keys

Police badge

Investigative documents

Pencil

Newspaper clippings

Cast List

Will Shaw - Jared O'Callahan

Andy Watts - Investigator

Jack Dunn - The Walkin' Dude

Costume:

Jack Dunn - Long coat covering suit trousers with black polished shoes

Andy Watts - Tailored tweed suit

Will Shaw - Jeans & Hoody

Lighting

Outside - Scenes are appropriately placed near street lamps for natural dark lighting. Will use artificial light, such as car headlights, torches, spot lights, if needed.

Inside - Just a desk lamp to make it damp

Sound

Non-Diagetic - Music created on computer using cubase. (slow, minor, creepy/fast paced heavy texture/background, unobtrusive)

Diagetic - Footsteps, Gun shot, Breathing, Scribbling

Location

First location (writing the letter) - Will Shaw's home office

Second location (running scene) - Newport - Frambury Lane, Cherry Garden Lane, Bullfields, Will Shaw's brothers house

Problems - Cars will be a constant problem (in the way, making noise). Tripping over while running.

Editing

The titles and credits will be added via editing on computer. We will use editing to cut scenes.

[#2] Thriller plot

Location: Woods / Forest

Time: 5-6 (Dusk)

A man and his girlfriend are taking a nice stroll through the woods. The man decides he needs to urinate, and so dissapears into the trees to satisfy his bladder.

The camera follows the man. While he is urinating, you hear a scream. The man recognises it as his girlfriends and so frantically runs to see whats happening. He cant see his girlfriend anywhere but hears a faded scream some distance away. He then runs in that direction.

There are multiple different camera shots of him running. Then he sees a barn and slowly walks up to it. It goes into a POV shot of the man walking up to and opening the door of the barn. You then see darkness and it ends there.

[#1] Thriller plot

It is dark outside. The camera is up facing the sky. The sound of a telephone starts to ring. It rings for quite a long time. The camera then tilts downwards to a telephone box where a figure walks into the booth and picks up the phone. You cant hear any conversation, as the figure does not talk. You then see the person exit the booth and hurriedly walk off. You then follow this figure to a barn or abandoned dwelling. The rest is yet to come..

Free Periods

Using HTML (HyperText Markup Language) I created a table that shows when we all have our free periods.

Week 1 is complete and week 2 will be finished soon.

You can find it at the very bottom of the blog.

Edit - Week 2 is complete so now we can see whenever people are free to do some media work!

Thriller music details

Looking at a few songs or sequences we may want to use for our piece and music from Other thriller movies such as I am legend and seven. There are two different types really used. There is the slow minor tonality music which is usually quite expressionist and has very little texture to the music. Often the stylized dark piano is used with a minor bass and a odd scale played over the tops to give an eery/unusual affect. An example of this is air bender's lullaby from avatar.
There is fast paced action music for an opening scene where there is action or adventure. This is usually backed up by fast drums and a lot of synthesized sounds. The song would still be minor but sometimes atonal to not set it heart on either major or minor to give it that weird effect. Ambient is also very used in thriller movies. The Lo Fi quality and slow pads give it the "out of this world" effect. An example is microscopic by Gas.

Thriller Music

Here is a good example of the sort of music we want to have as our opening shot music. Obviously we cannot use this due to copyright and loyalty reasons but it helps us on what sort of things we want to use. hoefully you can understand a bit more as well

Clear Definition of a thriller

The genre of thriller is a very small one. Broadening between action and horror. Films such as Saw is seen as a thriller by alot of people and critics but it is actually of the horror genre as it has detailed explicit scenes which are usually left out of thriller movies although maybe still playing a part in the films. E.g in Saw there is a scene where A man is chained to the wall and out of desperation cuts his own foot off. This is shown clearly in the film where as the same thing may happen in a thriller but they would leave out the gory, distasteful, bloody scene.
The actual definition of a Thriller as approved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/THRILLER

a work of fiction or drama designed to hold the interest by the use of a high degree of intrigue, adventure, or suspense

Obviously this isnt very detailed but i hope i have expand on it a bit more.

Establishing Shot

These are some establishing Shots and what happens in them.

Thriller Opening
Death comes at a price
Thriller opening examples
The Dark Knight
-Fast pace edits
First scenes a criminal act
Naturalistic sounds, minimal talking
Se7en
-Loads of Extreme close ups
-No Dialogue
-Tense Music
Sleepy Hollow
-Close ups, established shots
-Props- Book, detective
- No dialogue
Terence’s idea
Psychopathic serial killer breaks out of prison and tries to kill his father who he blames for the way he is. The father of this serial killer is the president of the United States. When this serial killer was a boy he was neglected by his father at the age of eleven and was put in a special home. Ten years later he would be the most dangerous serial killer in America. President tries to hide background and covers up everything. His son then announces his intentions to kill his father.
Gulaid’s idea
An extraordinary man is in the park where he is in a standstill whilst the world blurs past time, the man has an eerie presence about him as the camera closes in on him you scars over his face with blood all over him, but as time moves on you tell it’s not his blood but the blood of someone or something, someone is following him he don’t see the person but can sense them like he has a sixth sense. As the person is in touching distance the man disappears all of a sudden leaving the follower angry and distressed.
Rahib’s idea
Pitch Black – credits will appear slow and faded
Short flashes of voice over of a police interview(no dialogue throughout rest of scene)
Camera following a man from his house to road where he meets a girl, shots of knives, rape (not explicit) film grain affect. Black and white
Shots of police photography, taking fingerprints, evidence etc.
Henna’s idea
Starts off silent and a pan shot of park. Twilight time of the day. Then suddenly hear a gun shot and blood on the screen with the name of the movie.
Then have a follow shot of a woman running wearing a long black coat and you only hear her heels hitting the floor and he breathing. She then get’s pulled into a ally way by a man, (you do not see the stranger’s face)
they walk out as soon as another man (authority figure) passes the ally way with a gun and you see she has now changed her clothes and her hair (wig) and walk in the opposite direction. Then there is a cut to the cemetery during the day and the same girl at a grave stone on her knees. Names of actors flashing across the screen
Target audience
“Contains strong bloody violence and very strong language”
Release date: October 2010
Final IdeaRahib’s idea – Death Comes At a Price
Characters – Man, woman, and figure of authority
Setting – house, dark lit road
Props – knives, hoodie
Storyline – a case being re-open after 20 years, and we tell the story from the criminals point of view and the goings on of that night.
Meeting the thriller convention
No dialogue
You get small hint of what character is like
Very dark and mysterious
Tense music
Low key lighting
Leaves you at the edge of your seat

General background of Opening Sequence

A good film opening

DO's

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• Thrilling music. Tense at moments. Build up of tension
• Make the viewer interested / intrigued and want them to see more
• Tell the viewer the genre and location of the film
• Use different camera shot techniques
• Use Mise en Scene effectively
• Show the protagonist and/or antagonist

DONT's

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• Give away too much of the plot
• Have unprofessional / unsteady camera work
• Tacky looking movie with cheesy music
• Boring titles
• Irrelevant sound to the movie

Potential music for thriller..

I've been looking at (well actually listening) to potential thriller movie music. My favourite instrument is the piano so that is what I've been listening to.

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The first song is the instrumental from a very deep, dark and graphic rap song.



Listen up to 20 seconds (up to when the beat comes in). I was thinking that this could be good thriller music. It is very mysterious and dark. Even though it lasts 20 seconds it could be looped.

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The second is Moonlight Sonata comosed by Beethoven.



I like this aswell because if used correctly it could be very effective. The notes change from low-high and vice versa which adds variance.

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I have just remembered that we cannot use copyrighted music which I forgot about. So thats quite annoying.

P.S. Obviously the music depends on the content of the thriller movie.

Link to the title sequence

I was flicking through the channels on TV the other day and came across the beginning of the movie Hostage.

I find the titles really fascinating. I love how the titles are blended in or integrated with the background. It is similar to the title sequence of Panic Room. I really like titles that integrate with the background instead of just appearing or flashing suddenly onscreen. To do something like this on our thriller movie would be very challenging but I think if pulled off could make it very good.

To focus and understand the music I listened without watching the video. My lack in instrument identification means that I do not know which sounds I hear however it is some kind of orchestra. The music exerts a great sense of mystery and wonderment which adds effectiveness to the scene.

I think the sequence and the music go together really well as the video is very red, black and dull whilst the music is dark and interesting.

Potential Intro music

Whilst sitting in my room at home I was listening to music while performing various other tasks. I was listening to a band called "I See Stars" And I realised that the first minute or so of the song "I am Jack's smirking revenge" would be quite effective as a background track for the thriller introduction. I am aware that the video Below is entitled "Save the Cheerleader" but I am quite sure that this is wrong and that the person who posted the video needs to sort hi facts out.



Listen up until around 1:05 (unless you have good taste in music)
I thought that the slow movement of drums to synth worked well in building up for the climactic outburst of the song, and the same could happen for the movie, an minute and a bit of buildup to a loud outburst of action. I ran all of this past Jack, Who is sitting next to me as I type this and he agreed rather helpfully that this could be a very good soundtrack to the beginning of a thriller film.

Thriller Research - Panic Room

Movie: Panic Room



I enjoyed watching this as it was so intense and gripping!

There are two events happening during this scene. Which merges into one.

The first one is the man fighting the woman and child. The second one is another man struggling to reach a gun.

From the beginning you see an injured man dragging himself along the floor with a sledgehammer. He then leaps onto a woman who is also down on the floor and they start wrestling. The woman trying desperately to escape him.

Then it cuts to another man on the floor who seems injured trying to crawl and reach a handgun. It then cuts back to the first seen where the child now uses her injection needles to stab the man in the back. The man punches the child away who starts to scream. It then cuts to the other event where you see the mans hand close to grabbing the gun but then an unknown hand wearing a glove appears from nowhere and picks the gun up.

It then cuts back to the first scene again where the man beating up the woman picks up the sledgehammer and is about to kill her with it. You see a (POV) Point Of View through the eyes of the man with the sledgehammer, that looks at the woman about to die, who lays there motionless.

It then switches to an (OTS) Over-The-Shoulder shot behind the woman on the floor where you can see the man about to hit her with the sledgehammer. Then all of a sudden a man from nowhere appears with the glove and pistol and shoots the man.

The reason why I think it is so intense is because of the music and sound. Throughout the whole scene there is a medium pitched orchestra which is the non-diagetic sound that adds a significant dramatic effect without being obtrusive. In other words, it's hard to notice it's there, but without it, the scene wouldn't be as effective.

The diagetic sound is the screaming from the child. It is loud and you can see the child scream so the viewer is obviously aware of it. It is played across both the events that occur in the scene. And again, intensifies the drama.

At the end when the man shoots the other man, you hear the sound of the gun. And when that happens all other sound is lost. This kills the build up of tension and climax.

Sound

Sound is not all just about the music overdubbed at the beginning of films and at tense moments. It is used for emphasis on certain things i.e a mobile phone ringing may be completely overdubbed off camera to make sure it is known it is ringing to the audience and is playing a big part in the scene. I like the idea of fusing diagetic sound with non diagetic like a scene from the film "One Hour Photo" where the diagetic shop music merges with the overdubbed sound track of the scene. Alot of the time the audience may not be aware this is happenin but when you take it away it removes alot of authenticity and realism away. I.e in an office there would be phones ringing in the background of the scene. I will posting alot more on sound as that is what our group have decided to assign me.

Discussions and swapping of contact details

We have swapped contact details.

Dawn of the Dead - Title Sequence Analysis

Video: Link Here

I watched the title sequence of Dawn of the Dead to expand my knowledge on thriller films.

I like the editing in this title sequence. Throughout the sequence you see images or short movie clips and then a black screen with a title which repeats. I quite like this as it cross cuts between the titles and the clips which splits everything up. Instead of the two merging to one.

It displays a sharp and quick clip of the movies content and zombies. It shows enough to make you know its a zombie but it doesn't show enough to give a detailed or clear idea about the zombie. On 18 seconds and onwards, dialogue is introduced. There is a speaker that anwsers questions. Questions about the zombies are being asked. However every questioned that is asked the speaker is unable to answer. This leaves the viewer entertained and slightly "on the edge of their seat".

Then at 40 seconds the soundtrack comes in and the clips become longer and the title parts less frequent.

I like the way how the text appears and dissapears on the titles. It is a red "bloody" font which is small and barely uses up the screen. It appears or dissapears by "slithering" away like a snake or blood. It is a simple but effective method of editing/graphics used.

I just watched "One hour photo" in order to better research how a thriller works
I was interested at how the film begins at the ending.
The narrative throughout was very interesting and helped to keep the film in motion
I noticed that whenever Si was narrating or just walking around his own little "theme tune" would play, this really helped to draw me in.
The music was very atmospheric throughout and really helped to set the mood, it also seemed to scale with Si's emotional state, getting faster and more erratic when he was emotionally compromised.
there was a shot that was used a lot during the course of the play where Si would be walking towards the camera while the camera backs away at his pace. This was an effective shot on all occasions as it allowed you to look at his face and read his thoughts while he was on the move.
An instance of this that was particularly effective was when he was walking through the store, and the ambient, diagetic music that they played in the store suddenly blended with a more sinister, non diagetic theme as Si's expression turned from a resigned good humour to a dark, purposeful stare.
A good thing about this film was that it really lets the viewer think. It makes you wonder why Si is the way he is and there are hints dropped later in the film about his past but there's no conclusive evidence. This leaves the audience to find closure by using their imagination, combining Si's actions with the subtle hints of what went on earlier in his life.
Overall I thought it was a brilliant film, dark, creepy and thought provoking. A brilliant example of a modern thriller.