Evaluation

Our media thriller challenges and develops media film conventions as it uses a broad range of shots to create a tense yet fast paced atmosphere. Starting with an establishing shot, you can automatically tell it is set in England due to the gloomy dark weather and the iconography such as bus stops and road signs. The quick cuts from extreme long shots to long shots make the film snappy and sharp which instantly shows it’s a thriller as it is snappy. The girl is walking at a mid pace which helps add to the momentum and build up.
As research we the film ‘The Shining’. This is a very famous thriller which uses shots to portray its genre. I learnt that to have a successful thriller you have to have a lot of long shots. This is to not only show the mise-en-scene but so you can capture what is going on behind the character on screen. This definitely creates a tense, Nail biting feeling.
Also as another source of research for our thriller film we looked at clips from Crime watch because we wanted to understand the shots they used to capture someone being followed. This was helpful as it showed thriller conventions such as short snappy shot lengths to build suspense. I learnt that to build suspense you needed to have the right music for the piece as this changes the mood of the scene; we applied this to our film as we had a fast paced soundtrack to help set the overall pace of the film.

Our thriller opening represents women as passive and vulnerable, as the young girl is being followed by a hooded boy. It also shows that women are more prone to being followed or attacked. The hooded person represents the youth of today, it shows that stereotypes of young men are not safe. It also connotes that men are more dangerous and powerful as they have more intimidation. The media social groups contrast dramatically as women and young girls are often in situations such as being followed so this represents them as the victim’s, whereas the males are represented as untrustworthy and dangerous.

Our product would be distributed to a small independent UK institution as it is very simple. The lack of different sets and mise-en-scene’s and simple story line wouldn’t attract to a worldwide audience as only English people would be able to relate to it. Also because the story line is a very common factor in today’s social society, so many English women would be able to relate to the lack of safety and trust between strange men on London’s streets today. It would not be a Hollywood hit as people from different countries might not be able to relate to it so it would be seen as unrealistic to them and perhaps boring. To create a worldwide realise you need a storyline that is more exciting and capturing.

The audience for our media product would be of a wide variety of ages. As although it does represent young women more it is does not have strong elements of youth in it. The language is understandable for all and the storyline can target men and women of different ages. Although it could appeal to both sex’s I think women would appeal to it more as they are being targeted and victimised so they would be able to relate more to it then men. They would also be working class people that tend to walk and use public transport more. In my opinion any normal working class or middle class person would watch this, for example ‘Rachel, 25, works in an office in central London’.

I would attract my audience by having as much advertising as I could afford. I would put my advertisements on buses and tube stations as the product has high elements of public transport. So people using public transport would be attracted and intrigued to see it. I would also advertise on billboards and TV adverts to get a more diverse and bigger audience. Myspace/facebook advertisements would be used as well as a lot of people use these sites and it would definitely attract a wider variety of ages and races. I would market the film using the storyline itself as I feel it would intrigue people to watch it and find out what happens.

During the process of filming I learnt to use many technical products such as camera work and working with sound and final cut pro. I found filming hard as I could not get a steady hand or good shots, but I enjoyed editing. This was because I found it easy and also fun to piece the product together. The end result was a team effort but I feel that my editing skills progressed highly in the making of this thriller. We used the internet and blogger to capture a daily diary of what we were doing, weather it was filming or editing. This increased my skills of evaluating as it helped me go over the process of each thing one by one.

From our preliminary film I learnt that the story line makes a big difference in creating a tense atmosphere. Our preliminary film was very intriguing and exciting where as I felt our final product lacked the certain element of suspense. I have also learnt that planning properly makes a big difference to your final piece and also to your group performance. The preliminary film was very well planned using a story board to mark each shot and what was supposed to be happening, this gave a clear outline of what we had to film. Whereas the thriller filming was not planned neatly meaning that we did not create a clear enough story board let alone a storyline that everyone agreed on. This meant that most of our shots when filming were decided on the day, which made everyone feel unorganised. It also affected us as a group as we did not all agree on the same things due to it not being planned properly.

Editing

All we had left to do was to thoroughly edit what we had filmed. We edited the different scenes and locations but we didn't know how it could all tie together. We then realised we didn't have any credits, which helped a lot as we used the credits to fill the change of scene.
We had 3 soundtracks that we wanted to use, but they all didn't fit or suit our film. So we had to edit the best soundtrack to fit the piece properly.

Cafe Filming

Due to the bad weather conditions and college play we missed out on a whole 2 weeks worth of filming. So during this time we edited the footage we had so far to perfection.
When we had got this sorted we realised we did not have time to go to Highbury and film in a cafe, so we decided to use the corner of the college canteen. At first i thought it would not work and would look tacky, but we didn't have a choice as we were running out of time.
When we had finished the cafe scene we decided to look at our footage to see if it was successful, to my surprise it was. It did not look obvious it was filmed in college which was good as we did not have anything left to film. The shots were very effective and ranged widely.

Third day of filming/Editing

On our next filming day we decided to start filming the end of the opening. We used an office in college as you can not see that its in college. Our plan was to film Nick walking into the office and writing an email saying he had got her, this didn't take long to film as we had planned out clearly the shots we wanted and the camera angles and movement. Which was different to our second day of filming as we had not planned out properly the shots we wanted, it worked out better having it planned as it was al lot quicker and the footage was a better quality.
After we had finished that section we decided to start editing this, this took longer then expected as some of the shots were wobbly.
We then planned our next day of filming which was set to be in a cafe in Highbury.

Second day of filming

We started our filming for the opening, we decided to do the start of it which meant we had to film around angel and in the college. We tried to get a variation of shots so that it would look interesting in our final produce, we ended up filming 5 minutes of footage. This was good as we had a wide variety of shots which was easier when editing as we did all we could. It then got very cold and rainy so we decided to head back to the editing suit and start editing what we had filmed so far. I felt this was a good idea as it made the editing process easier as we could vary it between filming. What we had filmed was successful as we had many shots to use although some were a bit dodgy. At the end of the lesson we decided to plan what we were going to do in the next lesson, this was so we didn't fall behind schedule.

First day of filming

Our first day of filming didnt go straight to plan, so instead of wasting vailuable time we decided as a group to get some establishing shots. This helped in our planning process as we became clearer of what we were exactly going to film the next lesson. We also came up with a plan for the next lesson and set targets of what we wanted to film during the next plan.

Group Pitch

In this lesson we had to plan our ideas for our opening to our thriller film. We came up with a narrative which we wrote out in stages and also drew on a storyboard. Our opening is about a young girl who is getting followed by a mysterious man, the man is dressed all in black and you can not see his eyes as they are covered by his hood.
We planned out our shots and scenes on a story board. We also made a brainstorm which showed the different conventions of our film. As a group we decided that we wanted to use a fast drum beat, this was to build up tension in the scene. The audience for our film after young women, this is so they know the dangers of the street.
We decided that the lighting was going to be a dark gloomy day and will also be naturalistic. although we wanted it to be dark it wasn't convenient for ny of us to film in the night so we decided on filming in the day.
The settings and locations of our piece is firstly at the train station then moves from the street to into her house. This is to keep it simple yet effective.
We also had to plan out how we were going to present it to the class in a persuasive manner, which made the film look and seem interesting.

Adding Soundtrack

In this lesson we had to add a soundtrack to our preliminary film. We chose a menacing piece of music that was fast pace so it suited our film. We also added a fast drum beat to it to create and portray suspense, this drumbeat got slower as the dialogue occurred. The menacing music stopped when the dialogue started, as we did not want it to over power what the characters were saying.
I learnt that choosing the right soundtrack was important as it sets the scene and classifies what genre the piece is. If we picked the wrong soundtrack it would change the whole feel and the over all atmosphere of the produce.
I found adding soundtrack hard, as I got confused when adding it to the film, at first it didn’t tie in properly. This meant that the dialogue was echoed. When I got the hang of making the sound track I corrected what I had done wrong before hand so that the final piece could be perfect.

Preliminary Film

As a second filming task, we had to film and edit a preliminary film. We had to film someone walking into a room and having a short dialogue with another character. As our first filming wasn’t interesting and didn’t have enough elements of suspense in it, we decided to make a strong narrative which meant that it would be easier create suspense as we knew what we were doing clearly.
The second practice of filming went very well, we were given two hours to film and we finished filming early. At first, I found it hard to put our piece together whilst filming, but we came together as a group. We knew we had to film the different bits of the piece several times to get the best shots, we decided to film things over 3 times so that when it came to editing we could make the final film perfect.
Between the first filming task and this filming task I have learnt a lot, such as not filming in order, match cutting and filming each clip more then once. You can clearly see this in our final produce of the film, as this time it does not look amateur. There are strong filming conventions and a wide range of camera shots unlike the first filming we did.
I think we used strong conventions of thriller films as the camera shots were very sharp and snappy which built up a lot of suspense. We used many different camera shots for example over the shoulder shots, looking at the other character from different points of view, not filming the whole body. Because we used a range of different shot types, it created anticipation within the scene and made the pace of it fast so it was not boring at any point. The lighting in the scene was naturalistic, which did not really create suspense but kept it natural. The mise en scene followed usual thriller films. Our piece was about a girl locked away and tied up in a room that was messy, this helped create suspense and build up the tension in the audience. This was very unlike our first attempt at filming! The narrative was strong so it was clear what the two characters were doing and created a strong storyline, which could possibly be an idea for our final filming piece.
This practice film portrays women as strong and dominant which goes against usual stereotypes of women. Usually the men have the power in the scene but this time it was different, this made our film interesting as this went against usual conventions of real film. In addition, it would have been better if it was a male tied up, as it would have really created the sense of women being more dominant. Our practice film also has a strong element of status as you could clearly tell who was in charge.
I feel that this filming task went very well, the end produce was very strong unlike our first weak attempt at filming before hand. We also worked very well as a group, as we got straight into filming which meant we finished quickly and was able to start editing sooner then we thought. One thing I personally found hard was the dialogue, as I found it hard to stay in role and not bursting into laughter, but this is not very relevant, as we do not have to use dialogue in our final thriller piece.

First practice filming task – Reading a newspaper

As a practice task, we were given the task of filming someone reading a newspaper in an interesting way that creates suspense. We were set this to get us used to using the camera for our final thriller films.
The camera work was not particularly great, as it was often shaky and unclear. I was also unhappy with the fact that we did not leave space between the person on film and the environment, so when it came to editing it looked very squashed. This made our piece look unprofessional and amateur. The most successful camera technique we used was filming from behind the plant, this worked well as behind the plants we could see a bit of Daniella reading the newspaper. It also looked good as it created a tense atmosphere as we didn’t know exactly what Daniella was doing there and why she was there. Filming behind the plant created suspense as we wanted to know more about the scenario and it conveyed that someone was watching her or even spying on her. This really set the scene and created an interesting effect on the person in the scene.
After we were happy with all the shots we filmed, we then had to edit it. At first, the editing was hard to grasp and get the hang of. However, when I got used to it I found it interesting and fun playing around with the different editing techniques on the computer. Editing the film itself was hard, as some of it did not make sense, this was due to the narrative not being clear. Although most of it ran smoothly some of the shots were jumpy, so this highlighted the bad filming.
I learnt that the mise en scene was very important when it came to filming as it tells the audience where the character is and what they could be doing. The use of mise en scene in our short film made it very boring, as the person we filmed was not placed in an interesting setting so this made the film itself very slow and not at all interesting. The set and scene we chose to use was our own media class itself, so the audience could see desks and tables, which did not look at all exciting. It also did not help us when trying to create suspense. The element of suspense was very little due to where we chose to film it and also because we didn’t use a range of camera shots. The camera shots we used where very repetitive which didn’t help at all when trying to make it interesting. The only time we created an element of suspense was when filming from behind the plants as this created anticipation, but other then that it was a drag to watch.
We hadn’t used conventions from different thriller films, as we had not properly analysed one before this filming task.
Personally, I felt the filming went ok considering it was our first time working together as a group and also with the cameras. The only thing I would change for the next time was to come up with a wider range of settings. After our first time of practice, we all know how to film properly making it look professional rather then amateur.