Friday 23 April 2010
Thursday 15 April 2010
Out of Focus Evaluation
1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our opening was to the start of a thriller. Throughout this project, we wanted to make sure that we kept to the conventions of thrillers, so we made several efforts at doing that so as not to deviate from the genre. We gave out many questionnaires to many people to try and pinpoint the exact kind of thriller we needed to do. We analysed the results of the questionnaire and concluded that we should make a crime thriller, which is not frightening, but suspenseful. We knew that the most efficient way to cast actors in the film would be to use ourselves as we all have acting experience. However, this meant that all the characters we play had to be of our age group and that the cast of the opening would have to be all 17/18 year old people. We knew that this was not a common thriller convention, but we made the descision to stick with it. One thriller convention we were certain we wanted to include was that of tension and suspense. We did this throughout the opening. We create suspense by making Tom and Sophie appear to be in a tranquil setting where they appear safe. But because of the use of first person camera, the audience know that they are in fact not safe as they are being observed. As the characters begin to realise that someone may be watching them, tense music begins to build up and leaves the audience highly anticipating what happens next. The mystery of the stalker's identity and intentions is sustained as the camera is blurred when it is dropped. We also use the convention of mystery earlier in the film when Andrew is walking in the streets. This creates mystery as the viewer knows that Andrew is significant in some way, but is unsure how and what his purpose is. A similar use of tension building is in the film 'Hannibal'.
We use a similarly tense music in our film and use a similarly serious type of font. Our title sequence was an important part in establishing that our film was a thriller. One important thing it did was establish the narrative. It did this by having a pan of photos which showed that someone was stalking and observing three separate people. There is also text on the photos such as: “bitch” and “cow” labelled on Sophie’s character which indicates that this stalker has an interest in Sophie’s boyfriend, Tom. This indicates to the audience that the film is about a stalker and there may be violence involved later in the film. We also conform to the thriller convention of introducing the protagonist in the title sequence. The protagonist in our film, even though it is not completely clear in the opening, is Tom. This is because we make clear who Tom’s character is and his relationships with other characters. Another thriller convention that we conform to in our title sequence is to create mystery. We do this when we showed the clips of Andrew. The audiences are unsure who Andrew is and are unsure of his fate either. All these conventions and techniques we believe successfully draw the audience into the film as they are likely to be anticipating what happens next. We added a spotlight effect to the photo pan to give the impression of darkness and enclosure in our film which may foreshadow what happens later in the film. We also knew that the title sequence had to include actor names, and people such as the Production Company and Distribution Company. Even though we used our real names, we invented the names of the Distribution Company and Production Company calling them “ENU Cinema” and “Dirty Lens”. We chose these names because we thought it would sound like the type of companies that would create this thriller. We also chose an appropriate font for our titles which we thought would maintain the tense atmosphere. We did the same for the final title reading: “OUT OF FOCUS”. We wrote it in capitals to show that there was a tone of importance to the film. There is a similar use of title font in the opening of the thriller film 'Panic room'. Although the titles are fixed in one place on the screen,
2.How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The main social group that our thriller opening represents is that of youth. The stalker is never seen clearly during the opening so it is unknown what age or any other social groups he fits into. The other three characters appear 16/17 and behave as people of that age would. Tom and Sophie are clearly in a relationship during the opening. This is typical of people of their age group as it is a common convention of youth to be in a very active relationship as older people in relationships typically appear to be less interested in their partner. Andrew however appears in the opening alone all the time. This is not typical of youth as youths are often thought to travel in large groups, but Andrew appears completely alone. This is to give the impression that Andrew's character is a lonely character which may make the audience sympathise with him later in the film if we had created a full thriller film. Another representation of youth that is in our film is that it is insinuated that there is a likely chance that the characters in the film will be murdered. One person between the ages of 16-18 who saw the film, commented that they felt they "connected with the characters". This shows that our descision to use youth actors was good as it allowed audiences to connect and sympathise with the characters. It is common in thriller films for young people to be murdered in a film. This is evident in films such as the psychological thriller 'Scream'.
This is an advantageof our film as now conforms to more thriller conventions.
For the actual product we have now created, the most likely source of distribution would be on the Internet on websites such as YouTube. It would be most likely to get the most views as it can be accessed anywhere in the world, it is short, and it is free to view. If we had actually created a full thriller, our distribution options would increase. We would be able to allow a cinema distribution company such as Optimum Releasing to view the film. Optimum Releasing are a suitable distributer for our film because they are known for distributing smaller budget films from less known film makers. They are also known for making horror/thrillers such as 'Wolf Creek'. Even though 'Wolf Creek' is described as a horror, it has similarities to our film such as the victims being youths. If they believed it good enough, they could distribute it to various cinemas around the country for cinematic exhibition. If Optimum Releasing rejects the film for cinematic exhibition, they may still manufacture the film straight onto DVD and sell them to shops for distribution.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Although we surveyed people of all age groups and took ideas from all ages into account, I believe that after viewing our final product it would be more suitable to people of ages ranging roughly from 15 to 25. This is because many of the main characters in the film are within that age range and are more involved in the events of the film. This means that people over 25 are less likely to identify or sympathise with any of the characters in the film.
5.How did you attract/address your audience?
The film would attract audiences most likely by word of mouth. Assuming our product was distributed on the Internet, people who liked the video and people discussing it with each other means that it is more likely to receive more viewings. Viral marketing may also be an effective way of spreading the video around the internet. Other ways we could have attracted audiences would have been to add a short teaser trailer to YouTube to generate interest. We could have also augmented the page the video is viewed on and add things such as pictures and taglines. We could have also advertised the film on certain websites including YouTube and Google. However, as the film would not make any income from views, it would be ineffective to pay for advertising despite it generating viewers.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The main technologies I have learned about during the process of constructing this product are that of digital camcorders and the brand of editing software 'Adobe Premier Pro'. Before the task I had little knowledge of how to operate modern DV digital camcorders. Throughout the process, I learnt how to correctly set up the white balance, the screen ratio and how to record to the tape efficiently. Along with this, I also found out how to correctly use the tripod accessories with it to film shots correctly. During this project I learned how to correctly use 'Adobe Premier Pro' editing software. Before the project, the only experience I had had with editing software was that of 'Windows Movie Maker' and similarly less advanced editing programmes. During the project, I learned about its features such as, video effects, video transitions, audio effects and audio transitions. We have at least used one effect from each of these features such as cross dissolve, tint and exponential fade. I also learned how to add multiple layers of video and audio.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
One of the main things I have learned from my preliminary task is that important tasks have a tendency to go wrong. For example, our group often had problems with the programme 'Adobe Premier Pro' such as it being unable to play back footage. When we did our main task, we loaded the programme on two computers at once so there would be less chance of an error during the loading. We also learned to check the digital camcorders for battery life because of the danger that it may run out during shooting. If we had had longer to observe the essential features of the digital camcorders during our preliminary task, we would have been less likely to have had some of the problems we had later the main task. The main one being the accidental filming of the photo pan in 4:3 ratio while the rest was filmed in 16:9 ratio. This was unnoticed until editing because we had had no experience with the make of digital camcorder we were using, which meant we had to re-film the photo pan sequence at a later date.
Our opening was to the start of a thriller. Throughout this project, we wanted to make sure that we kept to the conventions of thrillers, so we made several efforts at doing that so as not to deviate from the genre. We gave out many questionnaires to many people to try and pinpoint the exact kind of thriller we needed to do. We analysed the results of the questionnaire and concluded that we should make a crime thriller, which is not frightening, but suspenseful. We knew that the most efficient way to cast actors in the film would be to use ourselves as we all have acting experience. However, this meant that all the characters we play had to be of our age group and that the cast of the opening would have to be all 17/18 year old people. We knew that this was not a common thriller convention, but we made the descision to stick with it. One thriller convention we were certain we wanted to include was that of tension and suspense. We did this throughout the opening. We create suspense by making Tom and Sophie appear to be in a tranquil setting where they appear safe. But because of the use of first person camera, the audience know that they are in fact not safe as they are being observed. As the characters begin to realise that someone may be watching them, tense music begins to build up and leaves the audience highly anticipating what happens next. The mystery of the stalker's identity and intentions is sustained as the camera is blurred when it is dropped. We also use the convention of mystery earlier in the film when Andrew is walking in the streets. This creates mystery as the viewer knows that Andrew is significant in some way, but is unsure how and what his purpose is. A similar use of tension building is in the film 'Hannibal'.
We use a similarly tense music in our film and use a similarly serious type of font. Our title sequence was an important part in establishing that our film was a thriller. One important thing it did was establish the narrative. It did this by having a pan of photos which showed that someone was stalking and observing three separate people. There is also text on the photos such as: “bitch” and “cow” labelled on Sophie’s character which indicates that this stalker has an interest in Sophie’s boyfriend, Tom. This indicates to the audience that the film is about a stalker and there may be violence involved later in the film. We also conform to the thriller convention of introducing the protagonist in the title sequence. The protagonist in our film, even though it is not completely clear in the opening, is Tom. This is because we make clear who Tom’s character is and his relationships with other characters. Another thriller convention that we conform to in our title sequence is to create mystery. We do this when we showed the clips of Andrew. The audiences are unsure who Andrew is and are unsure of his fate either. All these conventions and techniques we believe successfully draw the audience into the film as they are likely to be anticipating what happens next. We added a spotlight effect to the photo pan to give the impression of darkness and enclosure in our film which may foreshadow what happens later in the film. We also knew that the title sequence had to include actor names, and people such as the Production Company and Distribution Company. Even though we used our real names, we invented the names of the Distribution Company and Production Company calling them “ENU Cinema” and “Dirty Lens”. We chose these names because we thought it would sound like the type of companies that would create this thriller. We also chose an appropriate font for our titles which we thought would maintain the tense atmosphere. We did the same for the final title reading: “OUT OF FOCUS”. We wrote it in capitals to show that there was a tone of importance to the film. There is a similar use of title font in the opening of the thriller film 'Panic room'. Although the titles are fixed in one place on the screen,
2.How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The main social group that our thriller opening represents is that of youth. The stalker is never seen clearly during the opening so it is unknown what age or any other social groups he fits into. The other three characters appear 16/17 and behave as people of that age would. Tom and Sophie are clearly in a relationship during the opening. This is typical of people of their age group as it is a common convention of youth to be in a very active relationship as older people in relationships typically appear to be less interested in their partner. Andrew however appears in the opening alone all the time. This is not typical of youth as youths are often thought to travel in large groups, but Andrew appears completely alone. This is to give the impression that Andrew's character is a lonely character which may make the audience sympathise with him later in the film if we had created a full thriller film. Another representation of youth that is in our film is that it is insinuated that there is a likely chance that the characters in the film will be murdered. One person between the ages of 16-18 who saw the film, commented that they felt they "connected with the characters". This shows that our descision to use youth actors was good as it allowed audiences to connect and sympathise with the characters. It is common in thriller films for young people to be murdered in a film. This is evident in films such as the psychological thriller 'Scream'.
This is an advantageof our film as now conforms to more thriller conventions.
For the actual product we have now created, the most likely source of distribution would be on the Internet on websites such as YouTube. It would be most likely to get the most views as it can be accessed anywhere in the world, it is short, and it is free to view. If we had actually created a full thriller, our distribution options would increase. We would be able to allow a cinema distribution company such as Optimum Releasing to view the film. Optimum Releasing are a suitable distributer for our film because they are known for distributing smaller budget films from less known film makers. They are also known for making horror/thrillers such as 'Wolf Creek'. Even though 'Wolf Creek' is described as a horror, it has similarities to our film such as the victims being youths. If they believed it good enough, they could distribute it to various cinemas around the country for cinematic exhibition. If Optimum Releasing rejects the film for cinematic exhibition, they may still manufacture the film straight onto DVD and sell them to shops for distribution.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Although we surveyed people of all age groups and took ideas from all ages into account, I believe that after viewing our final product it would be more suitable to people of ages ranging roughly from 15 to 25. This is because many of the main characters in the film are within that age range and are more involved in the events of the film. This means that people over 25 are less likely to identify or sympathise with any of the characters in the film.
5.How did you attract/address your audience?
The film would attract audiences most likely by word of mouth. Assuming our product was distributed on the Internet, people who liked the video and people discussing it with each other means that it is more likely to receive more viewings. Viral marketing may also be an effective way of spreading the video around the internet. Other ways we could have attracted audiences would have been to add a short teaser trailer to YouTube to generate interest. We could have also augmented the page the video is viewed on and add things such as pictures and taglines. We could have also advertised the film on certain websites including YouTube and Google. However, as the film would not make any income from views, it would be ineffective to pay for advertising despite it generating viewers.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The main technologies I have learned about during the process of constructing this product are that of digital camcorders and the brand of editing software 'Adobe Premier Pro'. Before the task I had little knowledge of how to operate modern DV digital camcorders. Throughout the process, I learnt how to correctly set up the white balance, the screen ratio and how to record to the tape efficiently. Along with this, I also found out how to correctly use the tripod accessories with it to film shots correctly. During this project I learned how to correctly use 'Adobe Premier Pro' editing software. Before the project, the only experience I had had with editing software was that of 'Windows Movie Maker' and similarly less advanced editing programmes. During the project, I learned about its features such as, video effects, video transitions, audio effects and audio transitions. We have at least used one effect from each of these features such as cross dissolve, tint and exponential fade. I also learned how to add multiple layers of video and audio.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
One of the main things I have learned from my preliminary task is that important tasks have a tendency to go wrong. For example, our group often had problems with the programme 'Adobe Premier Pro' such as it being unable to play back footage. When we did our main task, we loaded the programme on two computers at once so there would be less chance of an error during the loading. We also learned to check the digital camcorders for battery life because of the danger that it may run out during shooting. If we had had longer to observe the essential features of the digital camcorders during our preliminary task, we would have been less likely to have had some of the problems we had later the main task. The main one being the accidental filming of the photo pan in 4:3 ratio while the rest was filmed in 16:9 ratio. This was unnoticed until editing because we had had no experience with the make of digital camcorder we were using, which meant we had to re-film the photo pan sequence at a later date.
Tuesday 23 March 2010
Thriller re-editing
For the first half of the lesson, we watched our peers' opening sequences and gave constructive comments to help them improve. We had to think individually what we thought their plot was and then two points of feedback, one positive comment and one improvement.
Our feedback points were:
•Unusual approach
•Good camera work
•Good music choices - tension built at points
•Out of focus shot at the end - good ending
•Music - at points makes it sound like Television Drama
•Refilm some shots in wide screen
•Length of shots need to be edited and cut down
•"Tom" and "Sophie" romantic section, looks too "happy" and focused around them
•Cuts more from "stalkers" point of view so that it build up tension
The second half of this lesson we spent re-editing and discussing refilming. We decided that we should not film anymore of Andrew and should only refilm the photo pan. Andrew then spent some time downloading thematic music to use in our film. From a choice of five pieces of music, I thought the most suitable was a track called 'Secrets told' as it was very eiree. I also made more cuts between the stalker camera and the over the shoulder camera. To make a further distinction between the stalker camera and the over the shoulder camera, I increased the volume level of the interference in the stalker camera shots.
Our feedback points were:
•Unusual approach
•Good camera work
•Good music choices - tension built at points
•Out of focus shot at the end - good ending
•Music - at points makes it sound like Television Drama
•Refilm some shots in wide screen
•Length of shots need to be edited and cut down
•"Tom" and "Sophie" romantic section, looks too "happy" and focused around them
•Cuts more from "stalkers" point of view so that it build up tension
The second half of this lesson we spent re-editing and discussing refilming. We decided that we should not film anymore of Andrew and should only refilm the photo pan. Andrew then spent some time downloading thematic music to use in our film. From a choice of five pieces of music, I thought the most suitable was a track called 'Secrets told' as it was very eiree. I also made more cuts between the stalker camera and the over the shoulder camera. To make a further distinction between the stalker camera and the over the shoulder camera, I increased the volume level of the interference in the stalker camera shots.
Monday 22 March 2010
Monday 15 March 2010
Thriller Editing 2
Today we continued with editing together our opening sequence. Today we managed to finish the outline of our editing by cutting all our shots and music to the right length and putting it in the correct order. This meant we could get started on the time consuming effects of brightness, saturation and transitions and titles. I added in the 'dip to black' transition inbetween other footage and the photo pan and the 'cross dissolve' transition between the photo pan and other footage. We had a discussion whether our opening sequence should be a mixture of greyscale and colour, just greyscale or just colour. We finally decided that the whole opening sequence should be in greyscale. This will hopefully give the impression of a sinister detective genre format. The greyscale footage gives the opening sequence an unusual and unpredictable tone and hopefully will conform to thriller conventions. Next lesson we need to finish the editing process by adding titles and making small changes.
Saturday 13 March 2010
Thriller Editing
Today, in lesson we captured the videos which we shot earlier and then started the editing process. Firstly we looked at all of the clips which we had taken throughout filming process. Whilst watching the clips we all had a discussion about which bits of that can be used and which bits we can be cut down slightly. We had made sure during filming process that we filmed more than we needed so that in the editing process, we had enough footage, rather than having to go out and reshoot scenes. We also decided that the full opening or most of it should be shown in greyscale as the tone of film contrasted with the colours in it. If it was not in greyscale, we wanted to use faded colours. We decided that the hand held camera shots for the multiple photo pan worked better than the tripod panning shots. This was because the handheld shots were very fluid and accurate while the tripod shots appeared rigid and inconsistent. We edited the clips of Andrew walking together to make the walking appear continuous. We used a cross disolve into the sequence and a fade out of it. We then placed in between two different edits of the multiple photo pan sequence. We experimented with the saturation and brightness levels because we initially wanted this part to be in very faded colours. However, we could not find a good and consistent affect to achieve what we wanted so we decided to just have it shown in greyscale.
Tuesday 9 March 2010
Thriller Filming 4
We continued to do our filming for our opening scene. Our group travelled again to Archer's field with the intention of filming Tom and Sophie as a couple. We filmed them first from two different angles walking together in front of a small collection of trees and bushes. These shots were all intended to be an audince point of view rather than fro
m the view of the stalker.
We then did a low angle shot close up of Tom and Sophie from Sophie's side and then a reversed shot of it. We intended the audience now to connect the images they saw in the photos earlier to the ones they are seeing then.
We took several shots from inside the tree area from a first person point of view. Andrew was
controlling the camera here and moved the camera behind the trees more everytime either sophie or Tom showed signs that someone was there. After a short while, Andrew pretended to drop the camera while I ran towards Tom and Sophie with a hood up while they ran away. Andrew then filmed panning shots of Tom and Sophie running through a small woodland nearby, although we are unsure if we will need to use this footage. When we returned to college, we captured the footage.
m the view of the stalker.We then did a low angle shot close up of Tom and Sophie from Sophie's side and then a reversed shot of it. We intended the audience now to connect the images they saw in the photos earlier to the ones they are seeing then.
We took several shots from inside the tree area from a first person point of view. Andrew was
controlling the camera here and moved the camera behind the trees more everytime either sophie or Tom showed signs that someone was there. After a short while, Andrew pretended to drop the camera while I ran towards Tom and Sophie with a hood up while they ran away. Andrew then filmed panning shots of Tom and Sophie running through a small woodland nearby, although we are unsure if we will need to use this footage. When we returned to college, we captured the footage.
Sunday 7 March 2010
Thriller Filming 3
We planned this lesson to film Tom and Andrew who were intended to be potential victims in our film. Sophie could not be here because of other obligations. We started by filming Andrew walking down a street. We did two different shots from across the road, one shot of Andrew walking into the camera and one of him walking away from the camera. We also did one take of a handheld, lower resolution camera behind him, insinuating that he is being followed and filmed. Next, we filmed Tom on the swings in a playpark. One shot was from the side/front, the other was a high angle shot to highlight his vulnerability. The vulnerability is also present in the mise en scene of the playpark. We also filmed with the low resolution camera from behind some trees to show that he was being watched.
Tuesday 2 March 2010
Thriller Filming 2
We arranged the photos we had on a pin board and appropriately annotated them. We then took the pinboard, camera and tripod to Sophie's house where we filmed several panning shots of the photographs. When we were ready to film and we thought the camera was correctly set up, we encountered the problem that the resolution of the image had too high levels of green in it. We later discovered that the night lens had accidentally been turned on. We then filmed one handheld pan of the photos and one tripod pan of the photos to use for the start of the film. We then went back to the college and plan to capture the footage next lesson.
Saturday 27 February 2010
Thriller Filming
We spent the lesson taking photos of each other out of college for the opening panning shot of the photos. We traveled around to and from a place called 'Archers field and took photographs of each other while making the subject look unaware and the camera operator seem hidden eg. by having part 
of a close tree in a shot.
of a close tree in a shot. Thursday 25 February 2010
Risk Assessment:
Risk Assessment
Bodily Injury:
We will ensure that appropriate footwear is worn during all photo taking and filming sessions and make sure that the ground we are walking on during a scene/photo is extremely safe before capturing.
Getting Injured By a Moving Car:
We will ensure that precautions are put in to place for road safety during footage around roads and we will never film actors crossing busy roads. (If crossing of a road is necessary in one shot, then the cameraman will never rush actor and make sure he/she feels safe crossing the road and that they do it as naturally and safely as possible).
Getting Lost:
During certain "forest" scenes, we will make sure that all actors have phone in their pocket in their pocket if they cannot find way back. However, this will be prevented by filming in groups of three or four at all times, which will limit individual isolation.
Damage to Equipment:
We will make sure, when handling equipment, that we do so gently and slowly, preventing any quick slips, trips or falls with the equipment. We will also share the equipment when walking therefore preventing any one person to carry all of it by themselves, which will hopefully prevent injury or damage to person or equipment.
Strangers/Assault:
We will make sure as a group that we don't annoy or aggravate members of the public during the filming's of our scenes. We will choose fairly isolated areas during the day to avoid this, but if we encounter a person we will take extra safety precautions to avoid awkward questioning or negative vibes.
General Injury:
We will ensure that our locations are near college during, college hours, so if something happened we can quickly return to get help. Also we will always travel in a group of 4, therefore if someone is in trouble, one (or two) member(s) of the group can stay with them whilst the other one or two can run off for help.
Illness:
If a member of a group falls ill time needs to be used efficiently to remain on schedule. If its more than 2hrs we need to find replacement or a definite reschedule date will be set and be met without exception.
Bodily Injury:
We will ensure that appropriate footwear is worn during all photo taking and filming sessions and make sure that the ground we are walking on during a scene/photo is extremely safe before capturing.
Getting Injured By a Moving Car:
We will ensure that precautions are put in to place for road safety during footage around roads and we will never film actors crossing busy roads. (If crossing of a road is necessary in one shot, then the cameraman will never rush actor and make sure he/she feels safe crossing the road and that they do it as naturally and safely as possible).
Getting Lost:
During certain "forest" scenes, we will make sure that all actors have phone in their pocket in their pocket if they cannot find way back. However, this will be prevented by filming in groups of three or four at all times, which will limit individual isolation.
Damage to Equipment:
We will make sure, when handling equipment, that we do so gently and slowly, preventing any quick slips, trips or falls with the equipment. We will also share the equipment when walking therefore preventing any one person to carry all of it by themselves, which will hopefully prevent injury or damage to person or equipment.
Strangers/Assault:
We will make sure as a group that we don't annoy or aggravate members of the public during the filming's of our scenes. We will choose fairly isolated areas during the day to avoid this, but if we encounter a person we will take extra safety precautions to avoid awkward questioning or negative vibes.
General Injury:
We will ensure that our locations are near college during, college hours, so if something happened we can quickly return to get help. Also we will always travel in a group of 4, therefore if someone is in trouble, one (or two) member(s) of the group can stay with them whilst the other one or two can run off for help.
Illness:
If a member of a group falls ill time needs to be used efficiently to remain on schedule. If its more than 2hrs we need to find replacement or a definite reschedule date will be set and be met without exception.
Tuesday 23 February 2010
Thriller Planning 3
We decided to start storyboarding our project. We also updated the thriller questionnaire and gave it out to some of the other people in our class. However, we had trouble with the storyboarding as we had trouble agreeing on scenes. We eventually decided that we should have a panning shot of photos placed on a table of us. It would have tense music in the background and have actor and director names appearing in the shot. We also came up with the idea of having a montage a photos of us in full screen doing various things. The photos would be point of view and we would appear unaware of being photographed.
Monday 22 February 2010
Thriller Planning 2
We started advancing our ideas for an opening shot with the idea of scattering photos of various mysterious places and people and panning over them with music in the background. The shot would then zoom into a photo which would then become part of the next scene. We began our initial design for a questionnaire and included questions involving fonts, titles and thriller preferences. We then began researching usable copyright free music which we could use for our project, we found a piece of music called (insert name) which we thought would work well with our project. It contains an eerie piano melody which we think will increase the atmosphere. We then began to storyboard our project and got upto the picture zoom. After a long discussion, we decided that it would feature us four in different places such as the city and the countryside. We came up with the idea of us being filmed in both the third and second person, indicating that there is a person actually filming the character. Sophie decided that she should finish the storyboard over the half term holidays.
Friday 12 February 2010
Thursday 11 February 2010
Thriller Research:Donnie Darko
Sound is used to create representations of thrillers. Building storm sounds increase the tension as the credits are displayed. When the establishing shot is displayed, ambient diegetic birdsong is present to indicate it as a safe haven. An electronic humming sound gradually gets louder as the zoom increases to increase the tension. This then turns into harpsichord music which has a childlike feel to it.
Thriller Research: The Bourne Identity (1988)
One of the ways which this is made a thriller is that the storm sounds grudually builds up during the short opening credits and then evolves into loud dramatic orchestra music. This all build up to the yell of the shooter and the fire of his gun. This creates suspense for the audience and readily sets the scene when the sea and boat shot is established. The music then becomes slower and sadder with added bubble sound effects. This slows the pace down but increases suspense as the audience is wondering if Jason will survive. The explosion at the end climaxes the scene as the man resurfaces and survives.
The camera angles also create thriller representations. The first shot is an establishing shot of the boat and sea which tells the audience the setting as well as leave them wondering what's going to happen there. As Jason is shot and falls down, there is a high angle shot to show his vulnerability.
The mise en scene is also important. When Jason is drowning, he is repeatedly being snagged by seaweed. This emphasises how he is underwater and likely to die, and makes it appear more sinister.
The editing is also used when there are constant switches between Jason and his shooter, while portraying their decreasing distance from each other. The fact that Jason gets more screentime foreshadows that Jason is the main character and that the shooter is unlikely to be important in the story. Jason's fall in the water is also repeated from a different angle to emphasise his fall.
Thriller Planning
After, being a test group for a teacher applying for our college, we decided our groups. I am in a group with Tom Adcock, Sophie Neil and Andrew Tinley. We then began brainstorming ideas. We decided first off that we wanted to do something conventional, but original. We also had the idea of it possibly being an action-horror-tragi-thriller. We had ideas of having death and murder as the openings background. Sophie then had the idea of during the opening credits, sepia photographs of people and settings could fade in and out on screen. On the final one, we would zoom into and it would become part of the action of a first scene. We began with ideas for a questionnaire to find out what people expect from a thriller.
Thriller Introduction 2
We finished watching 'The Usual Suspects'. We then discussed how it conformed to the conventions of thrillers in different ways. We then watched Thriller openings from past year groups to inspire us and learn from their mistakes.
Tuesday 2 February 2010
Thriller Introduction
Our new task is to create the opening of a thriller. On Monday, our teacher talked us through the codes and conventions of thrillers in our lesson and taught us what a thriller requires in its characters, its plot and its atmosphere. We then watched the openings of 'Lost Highway', 'Signs' and 'Blood Simple'. We discussed use use of camera angles, mise en scene, editing and sound in the openings and how they help make it a thriller. We then began watching the beginning of 'The Usual Suspects'.
Friday 29 January 2010
Preliminary Task: Record Scratch
Overall, I think that we produced our film very well and that we overcame all the problems we faced, such as losing one of our shots to a corrupted. One of the problems with it I feel, is when there is a tilt down of me, the camera hesitates slightly as it does it. I also feel that the handheld camera section does not work as well as it should have and is very juddery. I think we did the shot-reverse shot very well as we made the audiotrack seem whole as we switched between shots, we selected appropriote shots for different sections of dialouge and we didn't break the 180 degree rule.
Preliminary Editing 2
Today, for the next part of editing, we asked Oliver and Shaun to take control because they had not been involved directly in it yet. Firstly, they altered the length of the video and audio tracks so that the camera switched partway through dialouge. Next, they went throughthe entire audio and lowered it where it peaked at levels which may be damaging to the ears. Next, they took out the outtake as we all agreed that it was irrelevant. We then exported it to an AVI file and viewed it. We were confused at first as the player played it in 4:3 rather than the 16:9 that we filmed it it. We then realised that there was nothing wrong with the file and that 4:3 was the default viewing ratio for the player. We tried to upload it to Blogger but then realised that it exceeded the maximum capacity allowed by the site. We then re-exported it into a H.264 file and tried to upload it again. But when it finished, it was displayed strangely distorted and in negative. Instead we decided to upload it to YouTube and embed it into our blogs.
Wednesday 27 January 2010
Preliminary Editing
Last monday, Sophie and I used Adobe Premier Pro to edit the film during the lesson. Shaun and Oliver's job was to find suitable music and sound for the film and also to photograph the storyboards and mindmap to upload. Sophie and I first had problems editing because the computer's version of the software had a glitch which wouldn't allow us to play back our clips. After we diagnosed the problem, we used a different computer and carried on. We put the clips in the order we wanted from the best shots we had, cut parts from the beginning and end of it and deleted some of the diegetic sound in them which we thought was unsuitable. Afterwards we inserted the song 'Dude looks like a Lady' - Aerosmith, a record scrattching sound effect and a piece of music called Cantina band remix. We also thought it would be suitable to include one of our outtakes in the credits.
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Sunday 24 January 2010
Preliminary Filming
On friday, we took out cameras to film our story. Firstly, I checked the white balance on the camera, checked the DV tape and made sure it was filming in widescreen 16:9. We attached a tripod and took it out to our first filming location. We filmed Sophie walking repeatedly from various angles including from the side and from the front. We had to take many shots as it was difficult for me, replacing the absent Oliver, to pan across Sophie equally without it seeming jumpy. We then filmed a tilt up of Sophie at the door and a close up of her hand opening the door. We then filmed the cutaways which are intended to break up Sophie's shots. To do this scene I dressed up in a checkered shirt and put on glasses. We also borrowed a teacher's laptop to do this scene. Shaun then became the camera operator for the following shots. Our first shot was a tilt down showing me using the laptop. Secondly, we did an over the shoulder shot of me using the laptop to come up with ideas for valentines day. We then filmed Sophie using handheld camera come into the room, sit across from me and us exchanging dialouge. At this point Oliver returned from his exam and became the camera operator. After reattaching the tripod, we filmed the dialouge again twice over my shoulder of Sophie, twice as a close up of Sophie's face, twice over Sophie's shoulder of my face and finally twice as a close up of my face. Afterwards, we took the DV Tape out of the camera and captured it onto the computer. We realised that one of our first shots of Sophie was corrupted and realised we either had to refilm it or work out a way around it. Next lesson we are going to edit our film together.
Monday 18 January 2010
Preliminary Planning
We were shown by Mr. Mitchell a short film which teaches methods of reverse shot and included information about establishing shots and the 180 degree rule. Afterwards, my group and I started the storyboards and had the idea of filming parts of Sophie's body as she walks along the corridor. We changed the idea of having Sophie as a 'Nerd' and changed her character to that of a 'chav, slag'. However my character would remain a 'nerd'. We tried filming some of our shots to see if they would be successful; they were. After that, we finished the draft storyboard and will probably begin filming next lesson. Our plot is that Sophie walks into the room where I am sitting, looking for Valentine's day ideas, and breaks up with me. We may also need to re-do the storyboard as it is currently messy and confusing. I need to remember to bring in a pair of glasses and a shirt for next lesson.
Friday 15 January 2010
Planning Preliminary Task
I have been placed in group with Sophie, Shaun and Oliver to do the preliminary task. We discussed the roles in filming and decided that Sophie and I would be actors in this, Shaun would be costume designer and director while Oliver would be the camera man and be in charge of props. Then we discussed the plot and decided that Sophie and I would both apply to the 'nerd' stereotype. I would already be in the room when Sophie would walk in and then break up with me. We created part of a spider diagram with ideas on it.
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