THRILLER FINAL

Evaluation draft deadline mon 22nd 9am, final deadline mon 29th 9am

Thriller Film Opening Sequence Evaluation - 1500-2000 words
PowerPoint uploaded to moodle

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge conventions of real media products?
What conventions of professional products have you used in your own film? (narrative conventions, character conventions, genre, camerawork, sound, editing, special effects, mise-en-scene? Use screen grabs of your own sequence to illustrate each example where you have followed conventions or gone against (challenged) conventions. Also use images from the films that have influenced you where relevant.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? (gender, age, ethnicity etc.)
Compare a character in your sequence to a character in a professional film (use images). If you have included a villain/victim character, does the character follow conventions of characters in professional films. For example, is your villain male? Is your victim female? Therefore how are you representing gender?

3. What kind of media institution would distribute your media product?

Discuss similar professional films and their production companies (use images of the films and logos). Which production Company do you think would distribute your film? (if it was professional and if you had made the full film).

4. Who would be the audience for your media product? (BBFC and target audience) Use images from a similar product with a similar target audience. Remember that target audience is not the same as classification.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Refer to Significant moments in your sequence where you have tried to generate a response from the spectator (a close up to encourage identification with a character, music that encourages the spectator to feel suspense, tense, visceral reaction etc.) What techniques have you used to encourage the spectator to want to see the rest of the film? (Clues about narrative, character, etc.) Use screen grabs of your own sequence.

6. What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing your product?

(blog, camera equipment, editing software – Final Cut Express, istopmotion, Garageband etc.) Use screen grabs/photos of all these things. Be very specific about tools/effects/techniques learnt not just ‘I have learnt a lot about the software’

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your final product?
Discuss your second preliminary task that you did in a week before starting Thriller. Discuss what you have learnt since then about construction of micro elements in order to create meaning, how to use different techniques, practical skills etc. How have you built on your knowledge that you learnt from the prelim task? Use screen grabs of your prelim task and your sequence where relevant.

Music for torture scene

Because the our original music may not be long enough to last the whole of our sequence as intended, I have created a short piece that could be used in the torture scene if our first choice does not last for the required length of time. The song was created using Acoustica Mixcraft.

The song begins with light static and a rumbling noise. These sounds represent the victims disorientation and confusion. They may be played whilst no images are showing to truly show the victims perspective, as he cannot see due to the bag over his head. A heartbeat then begins, which gradually grows louder over the course of the song. I had originally planned the heartbeat to be representative of the victims, but I could not find a loop that gradually sped up which still sounded like a human heartbeat. Therefore the heartbeat is more representative of the killers - the steady beat represents his control of the situation, and his lack of fear. The heartbeat also adds to the atmosphere of the scene - the heart is integral to human survival, and when it stops beating we die. Therefore hearing the heart beat so loudly suggests that somebody's heart will stop beating soon, and this creates tension. The main sound within the composition is the eerie noise present throughout the middle of the song. This again adds to the atmosphere, and helps create a sense of fear within the viewer. I have let the heartbeat go on for a long time after the other aspects of the song fade out as it can easily be stopped at any point, whilst allowing time for the title shot to appear if necessary.

Here is a link to the music

Below is a screenshot of Mixcraft showing the construction of the song, and the various loops that were used.

Title Shot

This is an image we may use as the title shot during our opening sequence. It will feature at the end of the film and reveal the name of the film to the audience. It contains many links to our sequence and the rest of the movie, which I will explain.

The most obvious and striking feature of the image is the blood splattered across the pages of a newspaper. This connotes the themes of murder within our film and works in conjunction with the headline of the newspaper the achieve this. The full headlines reads: 'Killer strikes again: Another body found'. This, as with the blood, supplements the theme of murder and death. However, it can also be related to the case our detective is solving. Much of the headline is obscured by blood splatters, and even more importantly, nearly all of the text is covered with blood. This directly relates the to mystery - although our detective knows what is going on, he knows not why or how. The paper represents this - the title is just visible, but the details within the article cannot be seen.

The title of the film, Ascent, refers to the killers ascent to power, and how he becomes a more accomplished killer as the film wears on. On the other hand, our detective's condition worsens as the film progresses, and he fails to make any significant breaks on the case. This contrast between antagonist and protagonist is mirrored in the Ascent text -the light is close to the dark, but has not broken through.

Below are some images showing the creation of the image on Photoshop:

Overview of Photoshop and the image

Image showing all the layers

Peer Review Feedback

Thank you for the feedback. The main issues people found with our sequence were:

- The length of the kill scene. Many of our peers found it to be too long and this took away some of the shock value. By shortening it and making it 'short and sharp' we can increase the impact of the shots. This is extremely useful feedback for us as these shots are amongst the most important in our sequence. By increasing the effectiveness of these shots we will improve our sequence as a whole.

- The lack of a soundtrack/other audio effects. This is not a big issue as Sam has already created music to accompany the footage, but we had not uploaded it in time for the rough cut. However, it may need to be made longer to make it last for the desired amount of time. In response to the feedback, we may also add various diagetic sounds to our sequence. For example, a police siren in the background whilst the victim is walking to suggest danger.

- Relevance of newspaper articles. This is not a major issue as we will only be flashing up the images of the newspaper for a split second once we have finished editing. As we had kept some raw footage aside at the end of the sequence for future editing the newspaper articles were legible. Once we have finished editing they will not be clear, and only cast the impression of an article. However, this feedback is still useful, as we now know that we cannot show newspaper articles for longer than half a second.

- Not understanding much of the footage. This is probably due to the fact we have not finished editing yet. Only the first minute of footage was in its final order and edited. The last 3/4 minutes was compromised of raw, unedited, unordered footage which will not feature in the final cut.

Our peers did like:

- Our range of camera shots and angles. People thought that these added to the atmosphere and made the sequence more enjoyable to watch. This is useful feedback as we had been considering refilming certain shots. However, because of this feedback we no longer feel this to be necessary.

- Acting during the first 2-3 minutes.

response to feedback

Thank you everyone for the good feedback.

First of all we agree that our killing scene needs to be more quick paced to create suspense and disagree with the point about of not making a soundtrack, we just haven't added it yet.
improvements we need to make is more editing as it clearly stated. this will in turn make the sequence shorter as its too long. We may also take out certain scenes that was said to have no relevance to the narrative. Our soundtrack will also be added causing it to be more suspenseful to the audience.
It is important to get feedback as it gives us a view on if we're reached out to our target audience, having the views and opinions on others will allow us to make changes to the sequence to make it even more suspenseful.

Rough Cut feedback

S2-53
We really didn't get it. Some of the sequences did not make any sense. No soundtrack. There were parts with no noise at all. Good acting through-out the first 2-3 minutes. The killing sequence was too long an was unrealistic. Good camera work (angles/close-ups).


S2-54
The editing at the start is too quick. But very good angles and close ups. For the kill part of it it could be a fast edit. We think that the kill sequence is realistic if you could edit it fast it would look better. You probably haven't started a soundtrack but it does need one.

S2-49:

We think we that you have got some really good shots from the footage we have seen , especially in the torture/killing scene. You should include a sound track for the sequence, because you have no dialogue and this would help to build tension also. You could include diegetic sound as well for parts such as when the man has the bag over his head and is trying to get out. Maybe you should try and create more mystery.

We think that it would be good with more editing.

S2-50:
We think that the killing scene should be short and sharp to create more suspence. There are some very good and effective shots. Particularly, the shots of the feet, both when walking and when the character is being attacked. The newspaper clippings are not all relevent to the rest of the sequence, for example there is a shot of a frontpage which doesnt link in with the sequence.

S2-51 Feedback:
First 30 seconds well done, a nice selection of shots. During editing i would like to see some nice short shorts to create tension.When making q soundtrack make sure that it builds up and is conitusly adding to the atmosphere.

Rough Cut

As we have only just begun to edit our sequence is still largely made up of raw footage. Only the first 30 seconds are edited. The rest of the footasge is only a rough guess as to what it may look like.

Final editing for draft 9/03/10

Today we're going to continue editing our thriller in order to make a draft for the end of the lesson. We may try a couple ideas such as laying in order to make two screens so it seems two things are happening at once. the left side with the detective looking for clues and the right side of the victim getting tortured. This will create a surreal effect that will make it seem as if the two scenes are happening at the same time known as split screening.
We are also going to cut our longer scenes as we have around 10 minutes of footage we can use. This will allow us to edit certain scenes giving our thriller the best effects with shot types, this will make the audience feel a lot more suspense while watching the sequence.

First attempt of first scene

This is our first attempt of making our opening scene which we didn't use because it didn't meet the required quality we needed. What we were trying to achieve was a work/office environment but because we lacked the specific mise-en-scene e.g. costume, table lamp and globe.

Lesson plan 08/03/10

Our main aim is to finish editing the practice shots of Sam as a detective. Once this is complete we will begin editing the main sequence. In addition to this, we will constantly be updating and adding to the blog. We will rotate jobs so everyone takes a turn at editing and blogging.