In this lesson we will be looking at other group's film openings and evaluate them, we will decide whether we would choose to watch it or not and why. We will observe effects and techniques they've used and whether or not they have created an effective thriller opening.

More pictures for evaluation

Pictures For Evaluation

Evaluation Questions

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge conventions of real media products?
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups (gender, age, ethnicity etc.)
3) What kind of media institution would distribute your media product?
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
5) How did you attract/address your audience
6) What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing your product?
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel your have learnt in the progression from it to your final product?

17/03/2010

In this lesson we hope to complete our garage band to make th soundtrack and also finish editing the footage to make our opening.

We managed to finish our garage band so we now have a soundtrack for our opening we also finished editing the footage we do have, we put all the credits onto the footage and muted the extra sounds which were in the background (toilets flushing/people talking/doors opening) as we did not want these to be heard. When we put the soundtrack with the opening it fitted well as the soundtrack is quite dark and simple, which is what we wanted it to sound like. The only thing missing is the gunshot at the end, this is because we accidentally deleted it when we deleted the end of the soundtrack as it was too long for our footage and we were unaware that it was there.

Final Version

15/03/2010

In todays lesson Nicole and Becki are going to be working on the soundtrack using garage band. Fern and Olivia will be editing the footage that we already have. As we have not got all the appropriate props needed, we cannot film all of the extra footage that we wanted to film although we are going to film extra parts such as a tap running and a lock changing from green to red as we wanted the extra footage to have the credits playing over as we did not want them to be playing in the part where our main character, Olivia, is leaving the toilet. Also in this lesson we are going to try and finish as much of the editing as we can so that we can concentrate on finishing our soundtrack and then adding finishing details.

Observing our own work we know we need to add our ident, add a soundtrack and add credits. We need to shorten some clips and make the short cuts smoother.
What we said we liked is that when we zoom in on Olivia's face, we slowed it down because the zoom was too fast. The focus on the actor's face is not distracted. The actors kept composure.
What we need to improve is have a better location for filming and make sure we prepared thoroughly.

Feed back from other groups:

Q1-09
What they liked:
Olivia is a good actress. The plot doesn't give away too much information.
Improvements:
Cuts need to be smoother.
Will benefit from filming each clip for longer


Q1-08
What they liked:
Location is realistic
Acting is good
Thrilling plot so far
Editing and camera work is good
Improvements:
Sound - it needs music and some of the sounds are too quiet or too loud.
Needs to be longer

Q1-07
What they liked:
Very good acting
Good setting
Good use of slow motion
Good props
Improvements:
Sound effects a bit random
No credits
The bit at the end with the woman pointing the gun could have some faster cuts.

Q1-12
What they liked:
Good use of props
Leaves questions
Improvements:
Some cuts needs to be shorter
Some music needs to be added

Q1-11
What they liked:
Good use of close-ups
Wasn't too long
Improvements:
No comment

Rough Cut

10/03/10

In this lesson we finished editing our footage to get a rough cut . We have started to make the soundtrack by listening to sounds that we would like to include in our opening. We think we want it to be a simple and fairly quiet soundtrack because the opening itself is fairly simple and we do not want a massive contrast between whats actually happening and the music that represents it.

As we edited our footage, we decided we did not want to include another character, on the other side of the phone. This is because we felt that it would give away too much information (as it would explain why Olivia was in a rush to leave) and we wanted that to be left to be guessed by the spectators. Therefore we decided to cut this piece of footage out, and just have a one sided phone call.

Filming

We felt that filming went well as we managed to film the shots we wanted to and think we have enough footage to cover the two minutes that we need for our thriller opening. We need to edit the footage we have got and we have a lot of footage from the students who used the camera last year which we need to delete as it is in between our shots.
We filmed all of the footage that we wanted in the toilet, such as the phone conversation and the confrontation with the gun, we also filmed Becki on the phone outside near a wall, we hope to have a split screen to show the two different sides of the conversation between the characters. Becki's side of the conversation will explain why Olivia is in such a rush.

Thriller conventions

Thriller conventions

Obviously, many thrillers these days are hybrids ie. they draw from more than 1 set of conventions. However, it is still possible to create a list of thriller conventions. Consider the list below in your analysis and technical construction of a thriller:

Thriller Generic Characteristics

The narrative centres around a crime eg. a theft or a murder.

The protagonist is fallible and has an 'Achilles heel' that is exploited by the antagonist. The title of the thriller may relate to this weakness eg Vertigo and Insomnia.

The protagonist will be seen 'in peril' in one or more scenes before the resolution.

The antagonist ensnares the protagonist in an increasingly complex web, until the protagonist feels isolated and helpless.

The narrative presents ordinary situations in which extraordinary things happen.

Micro elements combine in a build up of suspense.

Themes of identity are common: mistaken identity, doubling/doppelgangers, amnesia.

Themes of seeing, reflection and mirroring. Manipulation of perspectives, visual McGuffins, and optical illusions are common.

The audience of a thriller is placed in the ambiguous position of voyeur. Voyeurism can also be a theme and the objectification of female characters is common especially in earlier thrillers.

A series of/ one important enigma(s) are/is set up in the opening sequence of the film, is further complicated during the first part of the film and only resolved at the very end.

What we need to achieve

We need to film the character receiving a phone call and leaving the toilet in a panic, we also need to show the gun in the eye as well as the character being shot. We plan to do a split-screen to show each end of the phone call, also there will be a close up on the phone to show that the caller is 'unknown'.

Starting Our Filming

With one member of our group absent, we began filming without her. Our main character has changed from Nicole to Olivia as we feel that she would be better suited to the role. We found a location for our filming, which is not particularly ideal, however it is in college grounds so easy to access. We have chosen the toilets as we can film the character 'changing', for example, painting her nails, applying lipstick etc. We filmed the painting nails, applying lipstick and applying mascara, and we were about to film the character receiving a phone call, but we were interrupted by other students wanting to use the facilities and felt that we would get to many interruptions.

Mise-En-Scene

In our opening the props that we will need are: nail varnish, mascara, lipstick , a bag (which contains these items and a gun. The character will be dressed normally as we want our character to appear to be a normal person in a normal situation (not dressed in a suit/tracksuit etc - just average clothes.) The location we have decided to use is the toilet, this is because it will make it obvious to the audience that the character is in a public place as there are multiple mirrors and sinks etc.

Practicing photoshop

Olivia's attempt

Nicole's attempt

Becki's attempt

We did this on photoshop, we did this in one of our first media lessons with the earth and the eye and thought it looked effective. We did this with the eye and the phone as we are researching which background looks best, against the eye, we are doing this as we want to have a reflection of a gun in the eye in our film, we used a phone as it is similar size and will work the same way a gun does, however we dont have the gun with us at the moment.

Script

Our character will answer the phone and say
"hello"
pause
"what do you mean"
pause
"what "
pause
"when"
pause
"ok"
pause
"alright ill be there in five minutes"
We think we are going to have a split screen and film another person speaking in a different location to show a conversation over the phone between two characters.

Basic Storyboard

The story board is a rough outline of the sections of our thriller opening, we have changed part of the opening and therefore have needed a different storyboard, we will film us doing various things untill it will all come together for a conclusion to the opening which will lead the viewers into suspence and they will want to ask questions about what will happen.

Fonts

We are researching different types of fonts for our title sequence, we want the font to look slightly feminine but we also want the credits to actually look as though they are the credits for a thriller here are some possible fonts:









This font was in the calligraphy section of the website, and although it looks quite creepy and it does look relatively feminine we think that it is quite difficult to read.






We thought that because the font is distorted, it would suit the thriller theme for our opening, however we do not think that it is suitable as it does not fit well with what our thriller film is about, we also thought that the font would be quite difficult to read.






We think that this font is clear and bold and has a slightly creepy edge to it, we have decided that this is the font we are going to use for our opening credits.

Brief Outline Of Opening

After around 40 seconds of short clips of things such as putting on lipstick etc, during which time we will have music which will be made on garage band playing. The characters phone will then ring and the music will be shut off to make an abrupt stop to the first part of the scene on the phone a short conversation will be held where the character will make comments such as 'what? when? I'm on my way now' (we are undecided at this point as to whether or not we will have someone else on the other end of the phone) and start rushing and panicking (stuffing things into a bag - gun etc)the character will then open the door to leave the room but as she opens the door, someone with a gun will be on the other side and it will be made apparent to the audience that the character gets shot, we hope to do this by having a still image of an eye, and hopefully (if possible) on top of the eye have a moving image of someone shooting this character. If not we will use photoshop to merge two images together, one of an eye and one of person holding a gun.

Changing Our Idea

We have discussed our original idea as a group and decided that we are going to change our opening. We have decided to change it for the following reasons, firstly, we feel that our idea would need a lot of tense acting and speech and we don't think that in such a public place such as frankie and Bennys this would be possible. Also we have yet to find out if we can use Frankie and Bennys for our filming, and as the deadline is coming closer we feel that it is wasting time.

Our new idea is using the same theme of women and drugs etc, however we are going to use shorter clips such as a clip of someone putting on lipstick, or fixing their hair, for the first part, however we will change the images to be more sinister, such as putting a gun in a bag or a needle on a table etc.

Credits

We are going to have our credits appearing on the scenes which display the character getting ready (putting on lipstick etc.) A possible way that we would like the credits to appear are by having them fade onto the screen. In our next lesson we are going to research different fonts that we could use for the title sequence.

Storyboard for thriller opening

The story board is a rough outline of the sections of our thriller opening. We did not include the first thirty seconds of shooting on our story board as we'll be taking shots of the surroundings of the restaurant and use them with the music.