Final Cut

Here is our final cut for our thriller project.

Evaluation - Planning

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

• title - development
• how 'Se7en' and 'Negative' helped my group
• abstract and narrative filming - differences between, why changed, etc
• photography and town scenes and idea
• looking at the theme of 'Gender' withint thillers - how we changed the stereotype, how does it still apply to a thriller conventionally
• As we worked through our group’s photography and town theme, my group decided to change and take a more narrative, rather than abstract approach, without giving to much of the plot away. Therefore allowing us to film scenes, rather than random images as done in an abstract, to make it easier for us to get our thriller idea across, still without giving to much of the plot away so questions could be raised during the narrative to confuse the viewer, which is a typical thriller convention.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• Teenagers (-both genders are equally vulnerable – boys taken first – but then girl left to defend herself. –drunks – vodka bottles and being loud – makes them even more vulnerable to attack -anti-social behaviour from teenagers - steroetyped underage drinking - therefore believeable?)
• Gender (Men – more powerful – killer is a man.)

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

• to show generic conventions of a thriller film (list generic conventions – in red book)
• to show how stereotypical themes such as ‘gender’ can be challenged (female vulnerability)

Who would be the audience for your media product?

• people aged between 15 – 30 years of age (teens featured in sequence – more depicted on teenagers lives and understanding – drinking, vulnerability of strangers)
• Both have one word titles about the films. For example, ‘Se7en’ represents the seven deadly sins within the Bible, which ultimately causes the killer to choose his victims. However, even though we gained inspiration for our idea from ‘Se7en’ I do not think that the content has turned out the same as we changed from abstract to more narrative.

How did you attract/address your audience?

• By using scary but upbeat music to attract a youthful audience
• relation to photography – very popular hobby amongst youth culture today – fashionable
• opening sequence feature teenagers – can relate to characters lives which makes it more scary for the viewer (it could happen to them sense of thought) – going out drinking at night with mates
• ‘Development’ was aimed at young adults of 15 – 25 years of age.

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

• garage band – music
• final cut express – editing video footage
• day for night plug in – used the colour filter to give the appearance of night (or at least dusk)
• Never used an apple Mac before – easy to use
• list different frame shots I have learnt (and used in the sequence)
• to use the tripod for steady, close-up shots – as used in my close up shots of killers hands and camera - gives professional effect
• I have learnt to use the tripod for steady, close-up shots, (such as what I used when obtaining close-up shots of the camera flash). This gives a professional effect to the footage.
  

Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

• to make sure you have a steady, solid plan that can easily work before starting
• need to be careful of outside conditions before deciding to film – brightness outside when filming night scene (colour filter wouldn’t work as well – difficulties, yet were pleased with end effect (clear film as filmed in bright conditions, yet gives impression of dusk still)
• make sure everyone has a clear idea of what they are doing within each scene (filming, acting, editing, etc) – I helped our team by creating a structured plan of who was doing what for both the ‘Town’ and ‘Photography’ scenes.
• Before starting our thriller project we had to create a preliminary task which I enjoyed, as it made us comfortable with the equipment and with the different camera shots we could use and was simply fun to create.
  We created an animatic before beginning the project to make sure we had a steady plan that could easily work, before starting. Our animatic was questioned about the amount of plot given away, so we shortened the amount of narrative storyline in our project so questions could still be raised.
• During the planning we updated our blog with all of the information we found out as well as notes to help us. I created a task structure on the blog for the group for people to follow and stick to, however, this was altered throughout the project because of people’s absences.

Evaluation Notes & Planning

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

- Boys instead of girls
- Convention of suspense
- Develops the equilibrium making it more subtly broken.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

- Props, vodka - binging - younger generation.
- Mise-en-scene, choice of clothing etc
-Location - modern but dull etc

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

- One apealing to the older teenage generation for example - twisted pictures etc.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

- Older teens between 14 - 20. people who enjoy thrillers etc.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

- relating to them via choices of characters and also choices of mise-en-scene and even the sound as it is a modern-sounding soundtrack.

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

- Filters (night) - hard to make work.
- Cameras - how to make shot look good.
- Tripods
- Software - so much you can do with it.

7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

- work as team
- produce better products
- linking micro elements together
- control of editing and camerawork
- planning
- more interesting story line etc
- how to create desired effects.

Dark room - Problems

When filming our thriller in the dark room we came to a few problems. The first of these occurred before we even started. The photographic paper that we planned to use to print the picture on to was too thick to be put through a printer so we could not get our picture for the dark room. We decided just to use a blank bit of paper for our developing just to show the process.
Our second problem was that we left it very late to film our last part of the film. so we had to re-edit the whole film after we had finished filming. The soundtrack was not long enough, due to this issue we decided to put some more non diagetic sound over the top but not to edit the actual soundtrack.
Once we got into the dark room we needed to do an over the shoulder shot of the photo being developed. This turned out to be more complicated than first thought. The tripod did not extend high enough to come over the shoulder of Ed. So we had to hand film which turned out to be shaky but not to bad as it looked like a view shot from the person developing the photo.
The final problem that we encountered was the gloves. They weren't quite big enough for Ed's hands and so in the clip of him putting on a glove it looks like a struggle to get the glove on. However this does not look to bad as it is blurred and looks like the developer is in a hurry to get on with his job.

Thriller Mise-en-scene

The costumes in our scene are very naturalistic, they are just normal clothes that a teenager out and about would wear.
The two props that we used are the camera and the vodka bottles. We used the vodka to represent age and social groups. Controversial issues such as under aged drinking can be seen here as the three teenagers drink and become more vulnerable.
The camera brings the idea of paranoia to the film. The idea of being watched is associated with the camera. This is exaggerated at the end of the opening with the close up on the camera. Then comes the flash as the photo is taken.

Evaluation notes

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• The music is a generic convention because it is a simple looped composition.
• We have used two male characters and one female which have challenged the vulnerability in other thrillers of the female characters.
• We have used a night filter which has increased tension in the scene.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• This opening creates a negative stereotype for young adults binge drinking.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
• -
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
• I think young adults to elderly.
• I think it would target young adults mostly.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
• We attract young adults by using that age group as the victims and I think the older generation would be interested how they would react in desperate times of measure.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
• I have learnt different effects that can be given and that we used e.g. night filter & earthquake effect.
7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
• I have learnt that changing shots can be more effective.
• The use of different shots and how they can be used.

Thriller Rough Cut

This is our thriller rough cut. We have used a night filter to make it look more like night and achieve a better mise-en-scene however we chose to film in daylight for better quality causing it to look more like dusk than night. During this project, a few problems occurred with filming due to the dark rooms being closed when we wished to film and having to re-do arrangements more than once.

Teacher Feedback

Your blog is looking very good.
Some images to illustrate your ideas for the props and costumes would improve your blog further. One of the aims of the blog is to communicate the mise en scene and imagery helps to do that.
Also include some clips to illustrate ideas and influences for the music and titles also.

Keep up the good work.

Opening Titiles Research

We have chosen the popular film Pulp Fiction to analyse the opening titles because we feel that the titles are effective that they use.
It has parts of the opening credits ontop of the footage and part on a black background. i think this would work well with a fade in our opening sequence. We are going to use plain text to make it look simple and not fancy text which may make it give the wrong impression to the audience.
The main film name is in bright colour and the rest of the credits are in plain white. i think we will do the same with ours and put the main name in colour. We may also use Adobe after effects to create some more interesting titles.

Editing Programmes we shall use

• garage band - music
• final cut express - editing video footage
• day for night plug in - use the colour and saturation filters, etc
  

Thriller Conventions

Ideas for Our Thriller Opening Sequence

• create a sense of suspense / tension / paranoia: this can be created through close up shots (for example, on a door handle / facial features), music reflecting mind of character (often creepy and chilling, making the viewer uncomfortable), lighting reflecting mood of character and to create scary mise-en-scene (usually red or dim light)
  
• good guy / bad guy character structure (however sometimes this is not so clear)
• visual and narrative hints - motifs
• plot: a journey to figure something out (solve a mystery / a twist in the narrative)
• the equilibrium of the film is quickly broken near the beginning of the film to be restored, generally, at the end.
• chase scenes
• create some king of enigma around a certain situation or character
• the narrative can be based around the protagonists flaw so he/she is held back in some way (sometimes resulting as their fatal flaw)
  
• music: a non-digetic soundtrack which is eerie to create scary atmosphere
• short title (often one word) indicating flaw / something to do with film narrative (for example: 'saw' 'vertigo')
• the main characters identity is questioned (good guy? bad guy?)
• flashbacks
  

Possible Titles for the thriller opening sequence

• Development
• Developer
• Photograph
• Depth of field
• Obsessed
• Obsession
• Digital Night

Animatic Feedback

Our original idea used 3 teenage girls as they would be more vulnerable to the killer. It then followed each of the girls on their way home as they separate off from each other to show that they are alone. As each girl was shown to separate off from the group the image would flick from that scene and the killer placing a photo of that character dead to suggest her murder. The ending would then show a photo of all three of the girls with the two dead ones being crossed off.

Feedback from the class and teacher suggested that in our original idea we showed to much of the plot therefore not leaving a lot to the imagination, so the viewer would not be asking questions about what is going to happen as the narrative would be quite straight forward.

After this we decided to change our narrative. we thought that we would change the stereotypical idea of three teenage girls being in danger, to one girl and two boys. We did this to go against the traditional generic convention of female vulnerability in a thriller by the two males being the ones who are killed, leaving just the female who is now vulnerable by herself, even though she is the only one to have survived so far. This helps raise questions, example, Why is only the female left?

We then cut out a lot of the town narrative to focus more on the killer's planning and the the single photo being taken and developed, rather than explaining to the audience how the teenagers separate off and are killed. This raise more questions, therefore creating more suspense.

Setting

When the teenagers are walking along at night they need to look like they have just been to town but are walking around the back alleys rather than the center of town. This will be filmed in daylight so the film looks better but then a night filter shall be added later. - Cambridge Leisure Park

When the killer is developing the photo and planning. This can be filmed in lesson time as it is dark already in the room with just the dim white light and bright red light as wanted. - Long Road traditional photography room (development dark room)

Groups Tasks

Decide Storyline / Setting / Title:
Everyone.

Town Scene:

Acting:
Charmaine Christie: Teenager 1 - isn't killed
Stephen Dickens: Teenager 2 - killed
Connor Murphy: Teenager 3 - killed
Edward Neely: Killer taking photograph

Camera Work:
Charmaine Christie: Photo close up shot
Edward Neely: Whole of Town scene

Editing:
Connor Murphy and Edward Neely

Soundtrack:
Connor Murphy

Photography Scene:

Acting:
Edward Neely: Killer in photography room

Camera Work:
Connor Murphy and Stephen Dickens

Editing:
Charmaine Christie

Soundtrack:
Charmaine Christie

Props and Costumes

Town Scene:
We are using naturalistic clothing of teenagers to keep the sequence realistic, the girl shall also have a handbag to help suggest they have been out.

Vodka bottles will be used to indicate that the teenagers are intoxicated, thus making them seem more vulnerable to attack.

A camera will be used to link the teenagers and the killer, (it shall belong to a teenage boy who gives it to the killer to take a photo, then the killer shall have it later on in the photography scene).

Photography Scene:
The character developing the photo will be dressed in dark clothing to make him appear sinister.

Photographs and paper will be used to show the development of the photo.
Photography enlarger shall be used to project red light onto to the photograph to create a sinister atmosphere.