The coursework for AS media studies was to create an opening of a Thriller film that was up to two minutes long and included titles. Music included in the film had to be from a copyright free source and to prepare for the final film at least one practice film had to be produced.
My Group, made up of, myself, Claudio, Daniel, and Nimrol, created an opening, to a Thriller film, which was eventually called, “Premonition”. “Premonition” is a film about a scientist who kills a person in an experiment and then starts to have disturbing premonitions. Therefore, he creates a machine that sends him back to the past so that he can change things. However every time he tries to change something he has even worse premonitions, but this doesn’t stop him from trying and eventually he kills himself before any of the things he see in his premonitions occurs.
Our “Premonition” develops the forms and conventions of real Thriller openings with the way it is edited. From the thriller openings that we watched as part of our research, and the documentary “Watching”, I saw that the majority were either based on tense tracking of the main character or characters, or a puzzling, or gruesome, thrilling event. For example, we watched “The Shining”, and its opening title sequence was mainly based on the camera tracking the family car up the mountains with haunting music, which set a tone that makes the audience thinks that something is going to happen. Even though there was not a big engaging event I though this sort of title sequence was very effective because it created an atmosphere, which engaged the audience.
“Premonition” uses conventions of a thriller opening because part of it is tracking main the character, it goes further by confusing with other shots which then confuse the audience of what they should be looking out for.
I think that “Premonition” would be made for TV, because it would more likely to come across as a short film with a market similar to “Doctor who” and “Primeval”, hence the fact that I do not think it is suitable for a Hollywood film distribution. Media institutions, which would distribute or film, would be on channels such as Sky Movie, Virgin 1 and Trouble. The film would also be marketed on the channels.
The audience for “Premonition” would be educated, people between the age of 16 and 24. The target audience would be a student at university, white male, lower or middle class and interested in science. The film is mainly dominated by males and therefore attracts males alike. Other people, who would like the film, are people that like intricate shot in film or photographers because most of the shot are complex and significant, and every shot matters. Therefore there would maybe come and watch it for inspiration.
The main character is a well-educated middle class white male, this being so, the audience is not expectant to see him as a killer or a bad person or some one has a difficult life. The victim in the film is a black male; witch on some terms is unconventional and irregular because black males are normally represented as the bad people. Therefore, I think this film is very unconventional.
I have learned a great deal about filming and editing from the process of constructing the film. I have learned how to use a camera, safely and effectively. I have learned how to log and capture, add effects, transitions and slow down and speed up thing on the apple final cut pro. I also learned how to export a soundtrack to a film project. Before this project I was only used Microsoft film maker and wasn’t really knowledgeable about any other film maker but I believe now I’ve almost got to full grips with final cut pro. Also before this project, I have never really known how to handle or work a camera or setup a tripod now its second nature.
I also liked using the blog to record the filming process because it was easy. I started blogging before the project so it was usual to me. When blogging not only could I write what I did so I can never forget it and you see your progress but I could also free express my views about our process and comment on other peoples.
The films were uploaded to Vimeo there anyone could watch it on the internet, which widens are potential audience because it can now be seen worldwide.
From the practice tasks, I learned the importance of the camera movement and angle. With each one we did, we got better and by the time, it came to the final film I knew what worked and what did not.
We knew to use specific shots to create certain meanings. For example, the shot when he walks past the puddle and we see his reflections along with the reflection of the building and the sky, gives the viewers some information but yet everything is not clear therefore creating a mysterious tone. Another shot that was very important was the end shot, because it was important how everything was composed in the shot. There is a similar shot at the beginning of the film, and when it appears at the end of the film, the audience know a little bit more about the character and they are then surprised to see when the camera is panned across, a hostage tied up in the background. When we went to the cinema and our film was shown it had this effect, ad the audience was surprised therefore I think it fulfilled its purpose.
From the practice tasks, I also developed my skills with the soundtrack program. We learned a about how sound is a fundamental factor in a thriller opening because it sets the tone for the rest of the film. The first time we created a sound track was in the second practice film; that soundtrack came together well so when it came to the soundtrack for the thriller it was not to heard. The only thing we found difficult was the timing, which I believe could have been better if we had a bit more time. We added electrical sounds and tried to merge it with the sound of a heartbeat to set a facts pace tone for the film and also introduce the theme of the thriller.
Overall, the whole project taught me a great amount about the conventions of film and the filming process.
If I was given the opportunity to do it again, I would plan very far ahead things like the story, and the location, which were things that we found to be difficult in our thriller, because they kept changing. However, I do not believe it did not show at all in the final piece due to camera work. Nevertheless, I would have liked to have had a concrete story to work on, that was contributed by the whole team.
Friday 27 March 2009
Thursday 26 March 2009
Evaluation
I believe that our opening uses and develops the use of a “Classic opening” as described by film critic Stanley Kauffmann in the documentary “Watching”. It described openings where setting, occupation and organisation level (high or low power) are all portrayed in the thriller opening. I believe that my groups has integrated this convention well as: we start the opening with medium and long shots of the location, which sets the scene; props such as the character wearing a lab coat and the activities he carries out such as putting wires together etc, show his occupation (although the audience will not be quiet sure if it is actual occupation) and we have a long, low angle tilt shot of the building were the camera tilts up which suggest that he is in the upper levels of the organisation. Also I believe that we used conventions from a real thriller movie “seven”. We used forms from this film such as close ups of the activities carried out by the person were only the hand can be seen and also we used the gruesome images of bodies etc, however we developed it so that these images were distorted as we believed it would cause more curiosity and unease for the audience
Our thriller opener has very little use of however the ones that are used are effective in representing specific social groups. At the end of our sequence we are introduced to our second character only for a brief few seconds and they are tied up. The use of having this character as a young black male could, represent him as a bad youth that would be involved in bad deeds such as violence and crime. At the same time in most films black characters are usually the ones with the big egos and are often used a humour and are most venerable to being the ones that suffer physical abuse. From the opening to our thriller we have represented them as the weaker character. This fits in with a typical film characterisation of “the black character always dies”. Also our main character illustrates a general stereotype of a film scientist where they are usually white in race and male in gender.
I believe that our thriller would be an attractive proposition for British film Production Company’s such as Working Title or a “made for TV” film for British television. This thriller would be distributed to main stream cinemas in Britain such as Vue and Odeon as these are the main means of cinema entertainment in Britain and in terms of TV on main stream TV channels such as BBC, ITV and Channel 4 as these are channels most associated with Britain (and Channel 4 especially with out target audience of youths). I think this because our thriller is set in a typical British inner city college environment (as is city and Islington College). I think this makes it good as a British film as our thriller would provide a thrilling illustration of college life which is different to those of international countries such as the USA as their system of education at 16. They are different as, at 16 you would still be a high school and also there environment is different such as having individual lockers and the social groups are tend in films to be very vague and precise (e.g. jocks , nerds, etc). This would mean that the thriller would be more related to British viewers as it is something they can relate to both directly (having experience college life in the past) and indirectly (thinking about joining college or interaction with college students). On the other hand it still remains a attractive proposition for international audiences at is gives them a insight into the education system and atmospehes (both physically and socially) of the UK which would differ in other countries such as the US.
The target audience for our film will be main streamers and aimed at the younger generations ranging between the ages of 15-25. It would be a attractive to mainstreamers as it is a thrilling film that conveys the thrilling entertainment it is meant to provide, also it is not generalised to any specific race, gender, etc so it is viewable for all people. I believe this as I feel that as our thriller is based on a college it would be something that the target audience can relate to in terms of most people in this age category are either contemplating going to college (aspirers) , are currently in college of have recently left full time education(achievers).
This would be a great audience as it would provide the age groups a opportunity to get into grips with supposed college concepts and to have college life as a thriller may make it more as an attraction as to a different surreal approach to life at college and in some ways an over elaboration of the “evil teacher” which students have experienced. The thriller I feel would be more targeted at lower to middle class family house holds as the college it self is more of a public college and upper class people are often used to a more expensive method of upper education. In terms of gender I believe that it would be suitable for both sexes as it does not have any masculinity such as “action films” with guns and explosions which usually tend to be a favourite with men and at the same time no femininity such as romance etc to appeal to women. This thriller is more of a mind game of how the main character “punishes his victims”.
To attract the audience I believe that an affective method would be to have a main star with a lead role that the target audience would recognise and appreciate as an actor/actress. Also I believe that as this thriller is to be distributed only on the UK scenes a British born star would be more appealing as for the target audience it would be known to them as home grown talent. This star could be one such as Aml Ameens who has been successful in both British television (as a police in ITV’s The Bill) and in British film (kidulthood which was a renowned success for teenage audiences). To advertise this thriller I think that advertisements such as billboards and posters on bus stops would be effective. I think this as for the target audiences age (15-25) the most popular mode of transport would be public transport so by having it advertised out and about on this area would grab the attention of the target audience more affectively. Furthermore to market the thriller to the audience I believe advertisements such as billboards and banners on web sites which would be affective as our target audience are young people who tend to use the internet a lot so having banners would be affective of drawing attention to our thriller and attract the target audience to view it using liks to a website containing other promotional material such as trailers.
Through the production of our thriller opening we I have encountered new technology. Firstly we were introduced to a more professional video camera and the concepts of using it including zooming and focusing shots. The most challenging piece of technology I was faced with was the use of final cut pro when it came to editing out footages to produce our thriller opening, this process included uploading our footage, logging and capturing our footage, putting them in sequence, editing to include effects and producing a sound track. For my final thriller opening the use of final cut pro became easier and easier due to have practice of the use in our preliminary tasks which allowed us to develop the skill. Also the internet opened up further doors of new technology that I have encountered. The use of blogging allowed me to keep a record of what we have done to make references to when looking back to things we still required to perform in order to make a good thriller opening. Further more by being able to release our thriller opening onto our blogs and also on to Vimeo illustrates to growing affect of the internet in our lives and how even amateurs can still put something out there to entertain audiences
I believe that the lessons we learnt from our preliminary task was essential in how affective our final practical task is. From our first task of a card game you can see that our editing was not very good as the scenes did not flow through very well and also unwanted footage was still on it. This was due to us having too much footage of the same thing which was necessary but to a certain extend and because we had so many it was difficult to make it flow through well as we had so many small clips to link together in order to produce the final edit. This taught us that we show have varied shots but ensured that there is enough substance to be affective. Then you can see our progression of skill when it came to our next task (match cut exercise) in this one our footage flowed through a lot better and made more sense, also we managed to include a soundtrack and some effects to make it look more professional. From this we learnt that having the shooting better planned out makes it more efficient and better when it came to filming as we knew what was required.
Our thriller opener has very little use of however the ones that are used are effective in representing specific social groups. At the end of our sequence we are introduced to our second character only for a brief few seconds and they are tied up. The use of having this character as a young black male could, represent him as a bad youth that would be involved in bad deeds such as violence and crime. At the same time in most films black characters are usually the ones with the big egos and are often used a humour and are most venerable to being the ones that suffer physical abuse. From the opening to our thriller we have represented them as the weaker character. This fits in with a typical film characterisation of “the black character always dies”. Also our main character illustrates a general stereotype of a film scientist where they are usually white in race and male in gender.
I believe that our thriller would be an attractive proposition for British film Production Company’s such as Working Title or a “made for TV” film for British television. This thriller would be distributed to main stream cinemas in Britain such as Vue and Odeon as these are the main means of cinema entertainment in Britain and in terms of TV on main stream TV channels such as BBC, ITV and Channel 4 as these are channels most associated with Britain (and Channel 4 especially with out target audience of youths). I think this because our thriller is set in a typical British inner city college environment (as is city and Islington College). I think this makes it good as a British film as our thriller would provide a thrilling illustration of college life which is different to those of international countries such as the USA as their system of education at 16. They are different as, at 16 you would still be a high school and also there environment is different such as having individual lockers and the social groups are tend in films to be very vague and precise (e.g. jocks , nerds, etc). This would mean that the thriller would be more related to British viewers as it is something they can relate to both directly (having experience college life in the past) and indirectly (thinking about joining college or interaction with college students). On the other hand it still remains a attractive proposition for international audiences at is gives them a insight into the education system and atmospehes (both physically and socially) of the UK which would differ in other countries such as the US.
The target audience for our film will be main streamers and aimed at the younger generations ranging between the ages of 15-25. It would be a attractive to mainstreamers as it is a thrilling film that conveys the thrilling entertainment it is meant to provide, also it is not generalised to any specific race, gender, etc so it is viewable for all people. I believe this as I feel that as our thriller is based on a college it would be something that the target audience can relate to in terms of most people in this age category are either contemplating going to college (aspirers) , are currently in college of have recently left full time education(achievers).
This would be a great audience as it would provide the age groups a opportunity to get into grips with supposed college concepts and to have college life as a thriller may make it more as an attraction as to a different surreal approach to life at college and in some ways an over elaboration of the “evil teacher” which students have experienced. The thriller I feel would be more targeted at lower to middle class family house holds as the college it self is more of a public college and upper class people are often used to a more expensive method of upper education. In terms of gender I believe that it would be suitable for both sexes as it does not have any masculinity such as “action films” with guns and explosions which usually tend to be a favourite with men and at the same time no femininity such as romance etc to appeal to women. This thriller is more of a mind game of how the main character “punishes his victims”.
To attract the audience I believe that an affective method would be to have a main star with a lead role that the target audience would recognise and appreciate as an actor/actress. Also I believe that as this thriller is to be distributed only on the UK scenes a British born star would be more appealing as for the target audience it would be known to them as home grown talent. This star could be one such as Aml Ameens who has been successful in both British television (as a police in ITV’s The Bill) and in British film (kidulthood which was a renowned success for teenage audiences). To advertise this thriller I think that advertisements such as billboards and posters on bus stops would be effective. I think this as for the target audiences age (15-25) the most popular mode of transport would be public transport so by having it advertised out and about on this area would grab the attention of the target audience more affectively. Furthermore to market the thriller to the audience I believe advertisements such as billboards and banners on web sites which would be affective as our target audience are young people who tend to use the internet a lot so having banners would be affective of drawing attention to our thriller and attract the target audience to view it using liks to a website containing other promotional material such as trailers.
Through the production of our thriller opening we I have encountered new technology. Firstly we were introduced to a more professional video camera and the concepts of using it including zooming and focusing shots. The most challenging piece of technology I was faced with was the use of final cut pro when it came to editing out footages to produce our thriller opening, this process included uploading our footage, logging and capturing our footage, putting them in sequence, editing to include effects and producing a sound track. For my final thriller opening the use of final cut pro became easier and easier due to have practice of the use in our preliminary tasks which allowed us to develop the skill. Also the internet opened up further doors of new technology that I have encountered. The use of blogging allowed me to keep a record of what we have done to make references to when looking back to things we still required to perform in order to make a good thriller opening. Further more by being able to release our thriller opening onto our blogs and also on to Vimeo illustrates to growing affect of the internet in our lives and how even amateurs can still put something out there to entertain audiences
I believe that the lessons we learnt from our preliminary task was essential in how affective our final practical task is. From our first task of a card game you can see that our editing was not very good as the scenes did not flow through very well and also unwanted footage was still on it. This was due to us having too much footage of the same thing which was necessary but to a certain extend and because we had so many it was difficult to make it flow through well as we had so many small clips to link together in order to produce the final edit. This taught us that we show have varied shots but ensured that there is enough substance to be affective. Then you can see our progression of skill when it came to our next task (match cut exercise) in this one our footage flowed through a lot better and made more sense, also we managed to include a soundtrack and some effects to make it look more professional. From this we learnt that having the shooting better planned out makes it more efficient and better when it came to filming as we knew what was required.
Evaluation
For this task we had to film a two-minute thriller opening. We were given several weeks to make the film and edit it and at the end it was shown in the cinema.
The opening of a film must not answer all the questions and it must leave some doubt in the audience’s minds. Therefore we decided to make something quite enigmatic. It showed me walking inside a building but some of the shots we did were CCTV-style so that it looked more mysterious and stood out more. Straight away the audience would know that something was wrong. There were also many scenes showing electrical equipment and wires before the final shot where the audience sees somebody tied up, unable to move. This was how we ended our opening. For the editing we used Final Cut pro. We also wrote our own soundtrack.
Overall I feel that we succeeded in our task and the film turned out well and looked effective on the big screen.
When deciding what to do for our thriller we thought of real thriller films and their openings to give us an idea of what would work and what wouldn’t. We were also shown a documentary in class about the openings of films. We learned that the most important thing is to build up suspense and leave the audience wondering what will happen next. The documentary taught us that the opening is, arguably, the most important part of the film as it sets the mood and the tone for the rest of the film.
Our film does not challenge the forms and conventions of real media products in any way but instead it uses them. When making the film we used the conventions of a thriller as a guideline for us. The dramatic music and the kidnapping of an innocent victim are very common. Our camera shots were standard as was the way in which we started off with an establishing shot and then did not show the victim until the end of the opening in order to raise questions in the audience’s mind and keep them glued to their seats.
Before we made the real thriller we made two practice films. These were to get us used to working with cameras and introduce us to Final Cut pro. The first film we made was about a game of cards. For most people this was their first filming experience so it was very informative. The next preliminary task was to create a conversation between two people. As we had already had some experience with the equipment, we were now given the challenge of using match cuts and clever editing techniques. We learned that it is usually advisable to do many takes, as there might be a problem that you can’t see which becomes apparent during the editing process. If you watch the three films in order, it is interesting to see how much progress we have made each time.
There are only two actors in the opening scene of our thriller. Both are male so women have not been represented in this opening scene. The victim in the film which we shot is black. However, during the course of the film the murderer will have many different victims, both male and female, of various races and religions. The reason for this is so that our film can appeal to as many people as possible. We do not want to alienate a particular social group by leaving them out as this could lead to a loss of popularity and revenue for our film. The point of the film is not to represent a particular race, group or class but to be an enjoyable and thrilling experience for those who watch it.
We would be looking for a large media institution to distribute our film, such as Universal. We would hope that it could have success worldwide. The reason for thinking this is that there are elements of our film which we feel have followed the conventions of what gives a film commercial success. It features a lot of action and violence rather than focusing on emotional drama or feelings. It could potentially make a lot of money for the distributors if it is turned into a big Hollywood blockbuster rather than a small independent release or even a DVD release only. High concept films with lots of special effects tend to do very well at the box office. To include the special effects that we need we would require a big budget, meaning that a lot of money would have to be invested into the film. Therefore we would have to make a lot back.
The main target audience for our thriller film is middle class teenagers. It would probably appeal more to males than females. This is because it is usually a mainly teenage audience who watches this type of film. As there is a lot of violence it would probably be more attractive to boys than girls. The middle classes tend to go to the cinema a lot but people from any class might enjoy this film. As the film is following the conventions of successful mainstream thrillers we would expect our audience to be made up of mainstream viewers. A typical person who fits into our target audience is 16-year-old Fred. He is a student of media, English language and photography. He shops in Footlocker and loves going to the cinema with his friends. He enjoys thrillers and also horror films.
We are planning to address our audience and promote our film through the right use of advertising, marketing and promotion, as well as trying to appeal to fans of that genre. We would look to use a director working with stars who he has worked with before in films that have succeeded. This would attract fans who enjoyed their previous work together. The work they have done in the past would also be thrillers, so that we could appeal to our correct target audience.
For our advertising we would make trailers and billboards with posters on the sides of buses. The trailer could be shown at the cinema and on television. We would also invest a lot of time in an internet campaign. As our target audience is teenagers, we would know that they have high internet use. Therefore youtube videos and adverts linked to teen sites would be good for us.
From this filming I learned many things about technology which I didn’t previously know. Firstly, I had never used a camera before, so filming was at first a bit tricky. We had a tutorial from the technician which taught us about the cameras and tripods and after that I felt confident to try filming. One thing I learned was the importance of the tripod. Handheld shots tend to come out very blurred and shaky. After the filming we edited using Final Cut pro, which was another new experience for me. I had an idea of how editing was done before but it was very interesting to see it for myself. Another technological thing we used was the internet. We did so in many ways, firstly to record our progress on our blog. We also released our film on video so that others could watch it online. With it being on the internet, this means it could go on youtube and potentially be seen by millions of people.
After we had finished the film it was shown in the cinema to all the AS Media Studies students. This was very useful to us as it showed us the audience reaction. As our target audience were teenagers, this was particularly useful for showing us how successful we were. The comments were very positive and people were impressed with our editing but felt that the plot was a little unclear. Next time we should focus more on this. The main area of weakness was our plot lacking clarity but the main area of strength was our editing. There was one shot in particular where I touched two wires together and then the music changed simultaneously. This was enjoyed by the audience. The soundtrack we created was also effective, as it sounded interesting and upbeat and enabled us to keep the audience’s attention. Overall, I feel that I have learned a great deal from this filming experience.
The opening of a film must not answer all the questions and it must leave some doubt in the audience’s minds. Therefore we decided to make something quite enigmatic. It showed me walking inside a building but some of the shots we did were CCTV-style so that it looked more mysterious and stood out more. Straight away the audience would know that something was wrong. There were also many scenes showing electrical equipment and wires before the final shot where the audience sees somebody tied up, unable to move. This was how we ended our opening. For the editing we used Final Cut pro. We also wrote our own soundtrack.
Overall I feel that we succeeded in our task and the film turned out well and looked effective on the big screen.
When deciding what to do for our thriller we thought of real thriller films and their openings to give us an idea of what would work and what wouldn’t. We were also shown a documentary in class about the openings of films. We learned that the most important thing is to build up suspense and leave the audience wondering what will happen next. The documentary taught us that the opening is, arguably, the most important part of the film as it sets the mood and the tone for the rest of the film.
Our film does not challenge the forms and conventions of real media products in any way but instead it uses them. When making the film we used the conventions of a thriller as a guideline for us. The dramatic music and the kidnapping of an innocent victim are very common. Our camera shots were standard as was the way in which we started off with an establishing shot and then did not show the victim until the end of the opening in order to raise questions in the audience’s mind and keep them glued to their seats.
Before we made the real thriller we made two practice films. These were to get us used to working with cameras and introduce us to Final Cut pro. The first film we made was about a game of cards. For most people this was their first filming experience so it was very informative. The next preliminary task was to create a conversation between two people. As we had already had some experience with the equipment, we were now given the challenge of using match cuts and clever editing techniques. We learned that it is usually advisable to do many takes, as there might be a problem that you can’t see which becomes apparent during the editing process. If you watch the three films in order, it is interesting to see how much progress we have made each time.
There are only two actors in the opening scene of our thriller. Both are male so women have not been represented in this opening scene. The victim in the film which we shot is black. However, during the course of the film the murderer will have many different victims, both male and female, of various races and religions. The reason for this is so that our film can appeal to as many people as possible. We do not want to alienate a particular social group by leaving them out as this could lead to a loss of popularity and revenue for our film. The point of the film is not to represent a particular race, group or class but to be an enjoyable and thrilling experience for those who watch it.
We would be looking for a large media institution to distribute our film, such as Universal. We would hope that it could have success worldwide. The reason for thinking this is that there are elements of our film which we feel have followed the conventions of what gives a film commercial success. It features a lot of action and violence rather than focusing on emotional drama or feelings. It could potentially make a lot of money for the distributors if it is turned into a big Hollywood blockbuster rather than a small independent release or even a DVD release only. High concept films with lots of special effects tend to do very well at the box office. To include the special effects that we need we would require a big budget, meaning that a lot of money would have to be invested into the film. Therefore we would have to make a lot back.
The main target audience for our thriller film is middle class teenagers. It would probably appeal more to males than females. This is because it is usually a mainly teenage audience who watches this type of film. As there is a lot of violence it would probably be more attractive to boys than girls. The middle classes tend to go to the cinema a lot but people from any class might enjoy this film. As the film is following the conventions of successful mainstream thrillers we would expect our audience to be made up of mainstream viewers. A typical person who fits into our target audience is 16-year-old Fred. He is a student of media, English language and photography. He shops in Footlocker and loves going to the cinema with his friends. He enjoys thrillers and also horror films.
We are planning to address our audience and promote our film through the right use of advertising, marketing and promotion, as well as trying to appeal to fans of that genre. We would look to use a director working with stars who he has worked with before in films that have succeeded. This would attract fans who enjoyed their previous work together. The work they have done in the past would also be thrillers, so that we could appeal to our correct target audience.
For our advertising we would make trailers and billboards with posters on the sides of buses. The trailer could be shown at the cinema and on television. We would also invest a lot of time in an internet campaign. As our target audience is teenagers, we would know that they have high internet use. Therefore youtube videos and adverts linked to teen sites would be good for us.
From this filming I learned many things about technology which I didn’t previously know. Firstly, I had never used a camera before, so filming was at first a bit tricky. We had a tutorial from the technician which taught us about the cameras and tripods and after that I felt confident to try filming. One thing I learned was the importance of the tripod. Handheld shots tend to come out very blurred and shaky. After the filming we edited using Final Cut pro, which was another new experience for me. I had an idea of how editing was done before but it was very interesting to see it for myself. Another technological thing we used was the internet. We did so in many ways, firstly to record our progress on our blog. We also released our film on video so that others could watch it online. With it being on the internet, this means it could go on youtube and potentially be seen by millions of people.
After we had finished the film it was shown in the cinema to all the AS Media Studies students. This was very useful to us as it showed us the audience reaction. As our target audience were teenagers, this was particularly useful for showing us how successful we were. The comments were very positive and people were impressed with our editing but felt that the plot was a little unclear. Next time we should focus more on this. The main area of weakness was our plot lacking clarity but the main area of strength was our editing. There was one shot in particular where I touched two wires together and then the music changed simultaneously. This was enjoyed by the audience. The soundtrack we created was also effective, as it sounded interesting and upbeat and enabled us to keep the audience’s attention. Overall, I feel that I have learned a great deal from this filming experience.
Wednesday 25 March 2009
Evaluation
Thriller Practical Evaluation
I think our media practical was successful in filling it’s role as a thriller. Typical themes and conventions of a thriller is that it is fast paced and has some sort of hero’s quest to stop an evil entity. The thriller genre however has many sub genres so this is a broad and basic view of a thriller. My group’s practical however bore this in mind giving our audience a fast pace visual experience from the offset. The BBC documentary on thrillers we had watched earlier in the media course looked at the pro’s and con’s of the two different ways to starting a thriller. The slow seductive approach or instant arousal and for practical reasons as well as theatrical we went for the instant hit. I believe it is hard to discern what sub genre our thriller falls into but that I would say it touches upon the horror thriller genre as horror thrillers often consist of some mental physical or emotional conflict between charters such as the ‘Saw’ series, and depends on the audiences fear. Our thriller opening is not long enough to display all these forms and conventions but the editing of the ‘villain’s’ flash back suggest a mental/psycho element , as well as the actions displayed in it connote some form of torture that will be carried out on the hostage we see being him at the end of it. Also I believe out opening takes influence from the opening of “Seven” through its editing which we viewed in the documentary. Seven’s opening consisted of a lot of cross fades and dissolve that focused on actions as opposed to the characters identity which we definitely incorporated in our open to create suspense/ sense of thrill. Another typical trait of a thriller is the unexpected. We opened the scene with a figure in a dark room looking up towards the camera then it goes into his flash back and ends with the same shot but this time the camera pans to see a gagged hostage behind him. I believe this is effective as the audience has already seen the character alone they assume the flashback to have already been carried out or to be planned but in them seeing the hostage behind our villain they are placed at the start of the tyranny and have a vague idea of the horrors that are about to unfold leaving them with a thirst for more that a further production of the opening would quench.
I think we both abide by the typical social groups that are represented but also challenge them. We only have two characters, the villain (Cloudio) and the hostage myself (Daniel). Cloudio is a young white male blonde hair blue eyes and the hostage is your average black youth. I believe that this sticks to the common representation of whites being more supreme over blacks. I think its challenges common representations however in that blacks are usually the criminals and whites the heroes so the role have been switch although the power balance remains the same. Also I think the same applies to the representation of gender by having the two main characters being male but challenges the typical representation of women being victims or damsels in distress. Also the charters are quiet young which I think creates link to the target audience of 15-25 year olds as it makes both or villain and hostage identify socially with the audience. Hence, I think our thriller would be a Hollywood production, as the thriller is aimed at a mainstream audience. Also the thriller may then go on to be shown on TV.
Some shots in our clip where quite dark and I think this is down to the equipment used. On the small screens of the Digital cameras and through the view finder the shots where a lot lighter than they are when uploaded and this was a bit of hindrance to the effect of our thriller. Also initially allot of groups, including mine, encountered difficulty with uploading the footage onto the computer which made the process of editing slow, giving us less time to try and correct the dark shots. When uploaded we used Final cut pro to edit our footage. I found it’s a relatively easy and straight forward program to use, due to the introduction we had to match at the beginning of the course. I feel that garage band was decent for making the soundtrack it had lots of sound effects that we found useful in the making of our soundtrack.
I felt that the practical went well. I believe that the earlier practice projects helped allot. Our first practice project was to film a card game and I think the skill we learned greatest from that was mise-en-scene as in that project we focused on that aspect from the costume of the main character, a rouge gangster, (pork pie hat, shirt, braces) to the props (alcoholic beverage bottles). In the final project we tried to really tried to link make use of mise-en-scene scene as the original story was a psycho electronics teacher so we intended to use large jump starter crocodile clips as a main icon to our thriller as well of film the main character fiddling with lots of electrical equipment which we did have to a certain degree but not as much as we had initially planned. The second practice project was to film a person entering a room and having a conversation with someone already in the room. My group had fun with this as an initial joke to do a Chinese, dubbed, karate film ended up being what we did. Regardless, the aim was to focus on match cuts and this project helped us to appreciate filming with a view of match cuts in mind ad it make a piece much more interesting. In that project my group aimed to film each shot form a range of different angles but this proved time consuming so when it came to the planning of the final practical we create a rough plan of specific shots we wanted to make match cuts to. The end result looked quiet different to the original storyboard we had but it did keep the same theme. I think making a storyboard made it easy to do this as we had clearly set in out minds what shots needed to be filmed and also the order for the shots in editing. I enjoyed pitching the idea’s we had to the teachers as we got very helpful input back on what worked well and what wouldn’t. I feel comfortable setting up and using a camera although my trouble shooting skills could improve as most time I called for the teacher’s assistance and many times the problem was trivial. I believe our project met the criteria asked of it and I had fun with a good group of fellow students. I enjoyed working on this project as I was able to obtain the key basic skills of media work
I think our media practical was successful in filling it’s role as a thriller. Typical themes and conventions of a thriller is that it is fast paced and has some sort of hero’s quest to stop an evil entity. The thriller genre however has many sub genres so this is a broad and basic view of a thriller. My group’s practical however bore this in mind giving our audience a fast pace visual experience from the offset. The BBC documentary on thrillers we had watched earlier in the media course looked at the pro’s and con’s of the two different ways to starting a thriller. The slow seductive approach or instant arousal and for practical reasons as well as theatrical we went for the instant hit. I believe it is hard to discern what sub genre our thriller falls into but that I would say it touches upon the horror thriller genre as horror thrillers often consist of some mental physical or emotional conflict between charters such as the ‘Saw’ series, and depends on the audiences fear. Our thriller opening is not long enough to display all these forms and conventions but the editing of the ‘villain’s’ flash back suggest a mental/psycho element , as well as the actions displayed in it connote some form of torture that will be carried out on the hostage we see being him at the end of it. Also I believe out opening takes influence from the opening of “Seven” through its editing which we viewed in the documentary. Seven’s opening consisted of a lot of cross fades and dissolve that focused on actions as opposed to the characters identity which we definitely incorporated in our open to create suspense/ sense of thrill. Another typical trait of a thriller is the unexpected. We opened the scene with a figure in a dark room looking up towards the camera then it goes into his flash back and ends with the same shot but this time the camera pans to see a gagged hostage behind him. I believe this is effective as the audience has already seen the character alone they assume the flashback to have already been carried out or to be planned but in them seeing the hostage behind our villain they are placed at the start of the tyranny and have a vague idea of the horrors that are about to unfold leaving them with a thirst for more that a further production of the opening would quench.
I think we both abide by the typical social groups that are represented but also challenge them. We only have two characters, the villain (Cloudio) and the hostage myself (Daniel). Cloudio is a young white male blonde hair blue eyes and the hostage is your average black youth. I believe that this sticks to the common representation of whites being more supreme over blacks. I think its challenges common representations however in that blacks are usually the criminals and whites the heroes so the role have been switch although the power balance remains the same. Also I think the same applies to the representation of gender by having the two main characters being male but challenges the typical representation of women being victims or damsels in distress. Also the charters are quiet young which I think creates link to the target audience of 15-25 year olds as it makes both or villain and hostage identify socially with the audience. Hence, I think our thriller would be a Hollywood production, as the thriller is aimed at a mainstream audience. Also the thriller may then go on to be shown on TV.
Some shots in our clip where quite dark and I think this is down to the equipment used. On the small screens of the Digital cameras and through the view finder the shots where a lot lighter than they are when uploaded and this was a bit of hindrance to the effect of our thriller. Also initially allot of groups, including mine, encountered difficulty with uploading the footage onto the computer which made the process of editing slow, giving us less time to try and correct the dark shots. When uploaded we used Final cut pro to edit our footage. I found it’s a relatively easy and straight forward program to use, due to the introduction we had to match at the beginning of the course. I feel that garage band was decent for making the soundtrack it had lots of sound effects that we found useful in the making of our soundtrack.
I felt that the practical went well. I believe that the earlier practice projects helped allot. Our first practice project was to film a card game and I think the skill we learned greatest from that was mise-en-scene as in that project we focused on that aspect from the costume of the main character, a rouge gangster, (pork pie hat, shirt, braces) to the props (alcoholic beverage bottles). In the final project we tried to really tried to link make use of mise-en-scene scene as the original story was a psycho electronics teacher so we intended to use large jump starter crocodile clips as a main icon to our thriller as well of film the main character fiddling with lots of electrical equipment which we did have to a certain degree but not as much as we had initially planned. The second practice project was to film a person entering a room and having a conversation with someone already in the room. My group had fun with this as an initial joke to do a Chinese, dubbed, karate film ended up being what we did. Regardless, the aim was to focus on match cuts and this project helped us to appreciate filming with a view of match cuts in mind ad it make a piece much more interesting. In that project my group aimed to film each shot form a range of different angles but this proved time consuming so when it came to the planning of the final practical we create a rough plan of specific shots we wanted to make match cuts to. The end result looked quiet different to the original storyboard we had but it did keep the same theme. I think making a storyboard made it easy to do this as we had clearly set in out minds what shots needed to be filmed and also the order for the shots in editing. I enjoyed pitching the idea’s we had to the teachers as we got very helpful input back on what worked well and what wouldn’t. I feel comfortable setting up and using a camera although my trouble shooting skills could improve as most time I called for the teacher’s assistance and many times the problem was trivial. I believe our project met the criteria asked of it and I had fun with a good group of fellow students. I enjoyed working on this project as I was able to obtain the key basic skills of media work
Monday 2 March 2009
Before filming we had to check that it was safe to use the camera as if we broke it thatcould waste money for the college. Therefore we had to have a safety check and sign a risk assessment form to make sure that we knew what we were doing so that everything went smoothly. After a lesson from the technicians we were ready.
What we learned was to improve our steadiness we needed a tripod and about to make sure it was fixed on correctly so that it doisn't drop off the tripod and smash. Also we needed to get the right picture for example if we have too much head space we could lose marks.
Having finished everything we signed a form so that we could check what was learnt and proceeded to film.
What we learned was to improve our steadiness we needed a tripod and about to make sure it was fixed on correctly so that it doisn't drop off the tripod and smash. Also we needed to get the right picture for example if we have too much head space we could lose marks.
Having finished everything we signed a form so that we could check what was learnt and proceeded to film.
dead line week of thriller course work
On Wednesday we found out that out thriller was going to be too short. As when we had put it together in sequence it was only 1 minute. Although we had not included our title’s it was obvious it would no carry through a full minute. When we found this out we where told by out media teacher (Andrew) that we would lose marks if it was this short and an ideal minimum length of the thriller should be a minute and a half. Also we had a problem as some of our shots may have been to dark. But we thought that this would not be a problem as we had taken extra shots in the previous lesson. Me, Daniel and Claudio again went off to shoot clips of Claudio doing activities and also the old shots but in a lighter background. We have over the shoulder shots of him turning the page and making references to texts in Daniels electronics book. We also had close ups of the text he was making reference to. Then we reshot the old shot in exactly the same way were the camera pans up to his face and across to the victim (Daniel). I thought these shots were really good and were effective in creating more suspense and curiosity die to the slow camera movements and the slow following of the text by Claudio. However in the editing suite when we went to log and capture the new footage we found that there was no new footage. This was because when we were filming we had reached the end of the tape, so all the shots we took were not recorded as there was no tape left to record onto. Due to this the shots we took came to nothing as they were not recorded so more time was wasted. So for the remainder of the lesson we started to structure our thriller more by adding in cross fades and effects such as black and white coloring. The majority of this editing was done and we then planned to start the sound track during our own time in media workshops.
On Thursday morning I had lessons so I could not attend the work shop. However because I had lost my ID card and so had to find it and when I did I came back to college with only half an hour of the first half of the lessons left. So instead of going to my lesson for half an hour I went to join Suzie and Claudio instead. During this time they told me they had done a filming of establishing shots. When I joined we continued filming the part we had done before but remembering to rewind the tape. Also as I had my biology book (as I had biology) we filmed more images that was in the book which could be useful in making the thriller a bit ;longer and also to build further tension as the images were all kind of distorted and didn’t resemble anything obvious. I then went back to my lesson which I had missed the first half of.
Then after my evening lesson of tutorial me and Suzie met up again to use the editing suit so that we can get a lot more work done as we thought we should do as much as possible rather than leave it till late. This was a time consuming process as all the computers were in use so we had to wait a good 45 minutes until a computer became available. Eventually a computer did become available and during this time we went through our clips and brushed up on them to make the progression through the film smoother and also to make to look more presentable and professional. Further more we edited more to make the thriller longer by adding slow motion but also to create more lesion due to the slow approach. I had to leave early due to having other planes and responsibilities, but Suzie assured me that she would be fine and that by the time she finishes only the sound track would need to be done.
On Friday I came in to media work shop at lunch time to find Suzie already starting the sound track. Together we came up with the sound track which included wind, heartbeat and electrical sound. We had them in stages with each other with the climax occurring then silence when the title comes up. Our soundtrack is loud and rapid so it will raise heat beats along with the flashes and distorted images with have in our thriller. And at the end it goes quiet which will settle the audience’s nerves but make them remember the opening of our thriller.
On Thursday morning I had lessons so I could not attend the work shop. However because I had lost my ID card and so had to find it and when I did I came back to college with only half an hour of the first half of the lessons left. So instead of going to my lesson for half an hour I went to join Suzie and Claudio instead. During this time they told me they had done a filming of establishing shots. When I joined we continued filming the part we had done before but remembering to rewind the tape. Also as I had my biology book (as I had biology) we filmed more images that was in the book which could be useful in making the thriller a bit ;longer and also to build further tension as the images were all kind of distorted and didn’t resemble anything obvious. I then went back to my lesson which I had missed the first half of.
Then after my evening lesson of tutorial me and Suzie met up again to use the editing suit so that we can get a lot more work done as we thought we should do as much as possible rather than leave it till late. This was a time consuming process as all the computers were in use so we had to wait a good 45 minutes until a computer became available. Eventually a computer did become available and during this time we went through our clips and brushed up on them to make the progression through the film smoother and also to make to look more presentable and professional. Further more we edited more to make the thriller longer by adding slow motion but also to create more lesion due to the slow approach. I had to leave early due to having other planes and responsibilities, but Suzie assured me that she would be fine and that by the time she finishes only the sound track would need to be done.
On Friday I came in to media work shop at lunch time to find Suzie already starting the sound track. Together we came up with the sound track which included wind, heartbeat and electrical sound. We had them in stages with each other with the climax occurring then silence when the title comes up. Our soundtrack is loud and rapid so it will raise heat beats along with the flashes and distorted images with have in our thriller. And at the end it goes quiet which will settle the audience’s nerves but make them remember the opening of our thriller.
Last Week *
Wednesday
On Wednesday, in our 3 hour lesson we worked in the special effects. Before we did that we were going to upload the footage the boys filmed the day before. Went through watched the tape but unfortunately the footage that they had film was not on the tape. When I saw this, I imagined that something must have gone wrong during the filming. We got allot of it done and got everything structure how we wanted it to be. We had put one credit at the begging and the Title at the end. And we figured that we could run some credits on top the film in the very light bits.
The group was satisfied with the structure of the film and thought it was ok to start our soundtrack. It was only when we exported it t make the sound track, we saw that it wasn’t even one minute long! There was frustration but not as much as there would have been if we hadn’t of had many extra clips. We still thought that we need more and panned to do more filming on the next day. I asked my teacher to show us how to add credits so we wouldn’t need to ask another teacher for help later on when they might not be able to.
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Thursday
On Thursday I came to college a couple of hour early and me and Claudio filmed so establishing shots, and also a shot of the lift going up, which was visible from outside the science block. When we got down stairs and I turned on the camera I saw that the tape was full. Then I realised that the reason that the guys filming didn’t come up, it was that they didn’t know that the film was finished and filmed any way, thinking that every thing would record. So I rewind our tape and filmed over things we had done.
Daniel was supposed to join us but he had work to do so he couldn’t. Nimrol lost his ID card, so he had to go somewhere to retrieve it.
Nimrol and arrived when me and Claudio also re-filmed the interior because we were told that it was to dark he had brought his biology book and I filmed some of it.
After Claudio and I did this filming I had to go to tutorial then we went to lunch. Our plan was to get everything logged and captured and then see what we needed then. When we (Me and Nimrol) came back we found that a no computers were free in the edit room so we had to hang around for about forty-five minutes.
Nimrol couldn’t stay long so I was left on my own to add and edit the footage and make it linger. Not all the footage that we had filmed this morning came out clear because of the fact we had filmed over things. But we still had a substantial amount to use at the begging, between the credits. I stayed for around two hours and also managed to add the credits too.
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Friday
On Friday I called Claudio to go to the media computer lab to save us a computer s we didn’t end up in the same situation as we did the day before. He did, and I arrived and managed to finish off the film and made the sound track. The sound track contained heart beats and wind and electronic noises. The sound track was approved by Claudio and also by Nimrol, who join us later. Daniel did not come due to other work. The I was really stressful, and if I had enough time I would have composed music myself because I didn’t find the timing of the sound and the range wide enough to crate an accurate soundtrack. But I tried to fit it as best as I could and only hope that it is long enough.
On Wednesday, in our 3 hour lesson we worked in the special effects. Before we did that we were going to upload the footage the boys filmed the day before. Went through watched the tape but unfortunately the footage that they had film was not on the tape. When I saw this, I imagined that something must have gone wrong during the filming. We got allot of it done and got everything structure how we wanted it to be. We had put one credit at the begging and the Title at the end. And we figured that we could run some credits on top the film in the very light bits.
The group was satisfied with the structure of the film and thought it was ok to start our soundtrack. It was only when we exported it t make the sound track, we saw that it wasn’t even one minute long! There was frustration but not as much as there would have been if we hadn’t of had many extra clips. We still thought that we need more and panned to do more filming on the next day. I asked my teacher to show us how to add credits so we wouldn’t need to ask another teacher for help later on when they might not be able to.
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Thursday
On Thursday I came to college a couple of hour early and me and Claudio filmed so establishing shots, and also a shot of the lift going up, which was visible from outside the science block. When we got down stairs and I turned on the camera I saw that the tape was full. Then I realised that the reason that the guys filming didn’t come up, it was that they didn’t know that the film was finished and filmed any way, thinking that every thing would record. So I rewind our tape and filmed over things we had done.
Daniel was supposed to join us but he had work to do so he couldn’t. Nimrol lost his ID card, so he had to go somewhere to retrieve it.
Nimrol and arrived when me and Claudio also re-filmed the interior because we were told that it was to dark he had brought his biology book and I filmed some of it.
After Claudio and I did this filming I had to go to tutorial then we went to lunch. Our plan was to get everything logged and captured and then see what we needed then. When we (Me and Nimrol) came back we found that a no computers were free in the edit room so we had to hang around for about forty-five minutes.
Nimrol couldn’t stay long so I was left on my own to add and edit the footage and make it linger. Not all the footage that we had filmed this morning came out clear because of the fact we had filmed over things. But we still had a substantial amount to use at the begging, between the credits. I stayed for around two hours and also managed to add the credits too.
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Friday
On Friday I called Claudio to go to the media computer lab to save us a computer s we didn’t end up in the same situation as we did the day before. He did, and I arrived and managed to finish off the film and made the sound track. The sound track contained heart beats and wind and electronic noises. The sound track was approved by Claudio and also by Nimrol, who join us later. Daniel did not come due to other work. The I was really stressful, and if I had enough time I would have composed music myself because I didn’t find the timing of the sound and the range wide enough to crate an accurate soundtrack. But I tried to fit it as best as I could and only hope that it is long enough.
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