Final Film Opening

Evaluation: Question 3

All movies are composed to suit a specific group of people. These people are the target audience of the movie and the potential customers. Each movie is produced in a particular way to appeal to their particular target audience.

Different genres have different audiences. People prefer some movie types over other others. For example, i enjoy action movies and dislike horror. This may be the complete opposite for others. Age, gender and ethnicity play huge roles when it comes to target audiences. For example, Disney movies are generally targeted for children rather than adults.

A thriller has many aspects which makes it more suitable for some people to watch rather than others. The presence of murder, abuse and various other disturbing scenes might suggest that the movie is aimed at adults rather than children. Even though gender isnt a huge aspect in the target audience for thrillers, stereotypically it would seem that male's are more interested in these types of movies rather than females.

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 2

EVALUATION: Question 1

Evaluation: Question 1

Evaluation: Question 2

EVALUATION: Question 2

Representation is how someone or something is constructed to show something to the audience.

The moodboard above shows many pictures of how we represented our stereotypes, such as the clothes for a casual 18-35 year old and the clenched fist shows the aggressiveness whereas the knife show the absuive nature.

The teddybear also shows the young mental age of the main character.

Evaluation Question 3

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Evaluation: Question 4

Evaluation Question 4

Who would the target audience be for your media product? 

The audience for thriller films in general can vary enormously due to the fact that there are so many sub-genres which generically create more specific target audiences. However, most thriller films have a age rating of at least 15, this specifies that they can contain strong language, violence and horror and reference to drugs and sex, which are common attributes of thriller films. Those who tend to be interested will be between the ages of 15-60. 

Different sub-genres will appeal to different types of audiences depending on their particular social groups and ability to relate to the genre and content of the film. For example an action thriller would stereo typically be more engaging for a male audience between the ages of 15-30 since this social group can be related to liking action, adrenaline and violence.  

The sub-genre of my thriller is primarily psychological. However we do include aspects of drama and horror. As the psychological thriller sub-genre contains complex ideas and can also contain violence and horror they are normally targeted towards an audience of over 15 year old males or females.

The more specific target audience of our thriller is:

a mature and intelligent 18-30 year old male or female who enjoys analytical thinking as well as tension and suspense tension and suspense. Social class and ethnicity are irrelevant.  

As our thriller will contain violence and horror at points which may be unsuitable a younger audience we have decided to have the age range starting at 18 years old. We felt that the viewer needs to enjoy problem solving as oppose to violence and horror although our thriller does include these aspects. Therefore I feel that the audience may fall more towards the female side as it also includes a background story of childhood problems but it would still appeal to males because of the action towards the end. We have cut the age range off at 30 because we feel that anyone older may loose interest due to the themes.

Here is a facebook profile I have created of a potential member of the target audience, a 25 year old female who is well educated. Her age and social class make her fitting for a member of the target audience.

Evaluation: Question 5

Evaluation Question 5

 Here is some audience feedback I have received from some members of the target audience

My conclusion on the feedback

To appeal to the target audience we have used an attractive male protagonist which will attract females and also men who are inspired by him.

We have also used mise-en-scene,  by including many props that connote childhood like the birthday cake and teddy bear we are appealing to the female audience who are attracted by the aspect of children and childbearing as they can relate to it.

Evaluation: Question 6

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


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Internet- Blogger:
Blogger has been a vital part of our project. It gave us a platform to share and collect our ideas within a group and also let us expand on it together. I've learnt how to use the tools provided and how to upload things of my own such as gifs, images, videos and a prezi. I did this to make the work look more interesting and also felt that it was useful to include several features of technology.

Vimeo- When we finished our final product we needed a platform to upload it. This is a video tube very similar to youtube. This enabled us to share our work with other students and gain feedback.

Software-
Soundtrack Pro: We used this programme to make a soundtrack for our film opening. With this programme I learnt how to change the pitch of individual sounds, how to split sound into different segments and how to change the volume of a particular sound at different times. We was able to obtain a nursery rhyme and edit it to make it more suitable for a thriller. To do this we changed the pitch and added other sounds from the library to compliment the lullaby.

Final cut Pro: This programme helped us build the opening. All our shots, video clips and titles were edited and added here. Final cut pro helped us put the shots in the particular order we wanted them in and let us add transitions and also special effects to the particular clip.

Quark: I used quark to set a guideline for the order of the shots of our thriller opening. This taught me how to create a storyboard and add writing to it.

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Equipment:

Flip camera: I used a flip camera to record students feedback and also 'behind the scene' footage. This helped us work on the criticisms we revieced from fellow classmates.

Still Camera: The still camera was very useful when taking pictures for the storyboard. This helped us get certain images and put them in the order we want them in. This set the guideline for the final product. We also took several pictures of our props, actors as they were performing, and ourselves as we were filming.

Video Camera: To film our opening we used a  JVC pro HD GYHM100E. We used this for the entire filming process and learnt how to use and function a camera properly. Focusing the lens was one of the features we had to learn and it was certainly not an easy task. At times the footage would be blurred as we couldnt use it properly but by the end of the learnin period this skill was also mastered.

EVALUATION: Question 3

Evaluation 3 slide from Can Arslan


-CANDI is the distribution whereas blumhouse production, the slideshow mixed them up

EVALUATION: Question 4

The wider audience for thriller tends to include all ages – however not all age groups watch the same thriller as all thrillers vary according to its sub genre. Generally thriller films tend to interest young adults as the plots all have suspense, tense and mysterious feel to it. This engages the young audience as the life they live can also be very fast paced or slow paced, this helps them relate to the thriller and stay engaged into the film.

The audience more specific to our genre is those who are interested in thriller films that do not give too much away and require thinking to get a good grasp of what’s going on. For example many people put inception as one of the best movies ever made. This is because many people had to watch it several times to actually understand what is going on. They enjoyed the thinking process as they were watching the film. We aimed to achieve the same effect which is why we tailored our editing and filming process to suit the needs of this target audience. This target audience is patient, out of the box thinker and likes the psychological aspect of the thriller.

The most specific target audience we were targeting from the go was of the age range between 18-35 males. The reason I have targeted this age range and gender group is because as most thriller conventions include some sort of murder/action scenes, i thought that this would appeal to this specific target audience. Furthermore the young adult male age range i picked for our thriller generally also like the solving aspect of psychological thinking thrillers because it engages them into the film and they feel more interacted with the film. The 18-35 male age range also suit out target audience as the main character we have is of the same age/gender group which makes the character somewhat relate-able  This also helps to keep the target audience locked in.

The reason why ours is 18 and not 16 is because our film will have plenty of weapons and blood and somewhat strong language throughout, furthermore we think the thought process which will go into our film may come across as ‘boring’ for those below 18 as they may not be patient enough.

I have created a facebook page for the film itself. The ideal person to 'like' this page in terms of our target audience would be someone who:

- Age between 18-35
- Gender: Male
- Out of the box thinker
- Patient attitude
- Detective like mindset

Evaluation Question 7

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

When filming the preliminary film my editing, filming and knowledge of software was much weaker than it is right now. I had very little experience with any of these aspects of media and found it difficult to start with. However, after guidance from our teachers I found that these skills were rather easy to gather.

Camera Work- During the beginning of the course I only had a general idea of the very basic shot types, this made the work look sloppy, unorganised and very basic. Now I have broad knowledge on different shot types and the effect and influence they have over both the audience and the film itself. I've learnt that the camera-work is one of the main aspects when portraying the status or representation of a particular character. I now understand that different angles and recording methods also have great influence on the clip.

Storyboard

For our preliminary task we used quark to set guidelines for our storyboard. This helped us set a basic criteria and add captions too.

The storyboard was an important part of the process and gave us a general idea of the type of shots we wanted to use for the actual movie opening.

Mise en scene

In our preliminary task we used very basic props with the 'anything will do' mind set. We thought it would have the same effect as props specific to the topic, but we was wrong. For our final product we invested in fake blood, new clothes and various other tools that we thought would make the opening seem more professional and also interesting. 

Lighting- To start with, we had trouble timing our filming. As we started filming it was still day-time in London, though this changed rapidly. As we were filming in winter it got dark very quickly and affected the lighting. this resulted in half the clip being during day-time and the other half during at night. Eventually we thought our timing through and made sure we adapted well to the weather and lighting changes.

Editing- For our preliminary task we had absolutely no knowledge on how to use software such as Soundtrack Pro so we used sounds from youtube, this made the clip lose originality and made it seem very ordinary. For our final product we were able to use sounds from Soundtrack Pro's library. We added a lullaby which made the opening seem very unorthodox and unique, in my opinion this made the opening seem more original.
We also were able to add special effects and transitions for our final product. This made the clip look more professional and helps maintain the interest of the audience but also creates suspense. We wern't able to do this for our preliminary task as we had very little knowledge on how to use the software provided.

To conclude, over the learning period we have broadened our knowledge on the software provided to us and also the equipment we were given. We are now much more familiar with the cameras and editing methods so we are able to make our work presentable and more professional.

Evaluation Question 6

EVALUATION: Question 5

Many key aspects in our thriller opening helped us appeal to our target.

Firstly, our main character (the first person the target audience see) who is casually dressed (misc en scene) appeals to our target audience because he is not too formal, yet not too informal either, but casual. This helps the target audience feel at ease and relate to the character/ put themselves in the characters shoes. This helps keep the interaction going and keeps the audience engaged.

Secondly, our genre was Thriller with the sub genre of psychological thriller, this appeals to our target audience as it has them thinking, as stated in previous questions.

Thirdly, Our location is not in the center of london, neither is it too far out. we transition between a basement scene and alexandra palace parks in which all of london is visible yet still in a rural like area. This helped appeal to the more older part of our age spectrum (18-35)

Fourthly, Paroxysm isnt a word everybody is too familiar with. So following on with our thinking process many people have to find out the definition to this, which is: A sudden attack or violent expression of a particular emotion or activity. 
This pattern plays throughout the making of our film.

To reach our target audience we predominantly used facebook, as you can tell from audience feedback in the video above.

EVALUATION: Question 6

Evaluation Question 7

EVALUATION: Question 7

Comparison between our prelim and final thriller product


PRELIMINARY

The prelimiary excercise we did in lesson for our first production gave me a genuine insight into filming our actual thriller, It was beneficial to do the prelim to make mistakes so that we ignore any mistakes in our actual thriller. Firstly, it isn't as easy it sounds. A few things i have learned at listed below. 
- having a variety of shots helps spice things up, we only had two or three main shots from the sitting scene, furthermore we filmed the money exchanged badly, so we had to go and refilm the 'money exchange' scene becasue we had a normal shot instead of a close up which would of been much more effective. 
- If you are going for a specific genre you must ensue you film in a similar environment, we planned to film our hitman scene in the office but we used the canteen instead and it looked very unprofessional. You must try your best to get a similar setting so therefore i believe location is essential into making the perfect thriller.

This over the shoulder shot was not done perfectly. the angle has to be positioned more on the right so it cuts out excess parts of the character as is not needed.

 In this shot the camera wasn't positioned perfectly thus it looks slightly bent, although it may be hard to tell at first glance it does make a major difference to the general feel of the film

In this scene, we were acting as soon as we pressed film and forgot to state '3.2.1.action' to make it seem smooth

Misc en scene

What our characters were wearing did not go at all with the hitman vibe we were trying to deliver to our target audience, the hitman was supposed to be in a suit and the lady was supposed to be smartly dressed, this is a major reason to why i feel we could not target our audience properly as our characters look like students.

Secondly the lighting is very average, we wanted to deliver a dark office feel and could not provide this, this was a major downfall to our final product and made it look more like a casual catch up chat.

Furthermore no props were added and it would of been beneficial if we had a briefcase or something to add a hitman feel.

Sound

We didn't do any sound checks and this came back to haunt us, our dialogue was extremely low and i had to record my voice and overlap it to fix our dialogue issues. We had no soundtrack just dialogue, i think this was negative to our film as it wasn't able to deliver what a more intense atmosphere

Editing

Our editing was awful in comparison to our final product, the clips were just cut down and stuck together. No transitions or effects were added to any of our clips and it looked extremely basic, this made it look nothing like how a opening to a thriller should.

Storyboard

 The storyboard here is hand drawn and harder to follow because its not the actual shots. Whereas in our final product we used a digital storyboard (shown below)


Final thriller opening

In our thriller we improved all our skills.

We filmed many things twice and filmed many extras as 'fillers' just incase we had to use them to consume time or just to substitute a clip. We were never short of clips and this helped us save time on the filming process so that we can spend more time editing it to deliver the feel we want to.

Our storyboard above is digital in comparison to our prelim storyboard which was hand drawn, having a digital storyboard meant that it was portable and we had it on our phones. Furthermore it was easier to read and we was able to understand it as it was clearer.

 Misc en scene

we ensured our characters clothes matched our age group which was 18-35

We made sure we invested in props (above) to make it seem more professional by buying correct props to deliver the psychotic abusive thriller we wanted. The props helped us achieve this by fitting with the stereotypes we used (unstable,aggressive)

As we were filming outside we had to cover the camera as it was raining to safeguard the camera

We contrasted correctly between our two scenes, at the first scene it was light and all somewhat happy and then it suddenly contrasted to the dark scene, we made sure the lighting done this by having a light scene and then a dark. The soundtrack followed suit as it was somewhat happy and then turned all slow and dark.

Editing

We used all effects to our advantage such as sepia and black and white and fast/slow paced to contrast continuously in our film to deliver the high tense atmosphere.

Our match cuts were done more professionally as the cameras were stationed perfectly so the transitions between the shots looked flawless and smooth.

Soundtrack:

Our soundtrack were slow paced yet loud and had many effects such as echo, distortion and playing with the pitch. We did not have a soundtrack in our prelim

Conclusion

In conclusion i have learned that to film a really good thriller opening, you must be organised and invest in props so that you fit the stereotypes you are trying to represent. Camera wise i learned that you should film the same things several times so that you have different angles so you spice things up in the editing process, by doing this you do not bore your audience and they get a different perspective to your shots. In comparison to our prelim, we added a soundtrack and this contributed massively to our tense atmosphere

EDITING Title research and adding titles

This screenshot shows us in the process of adding titles to our sequence.

we decided to intercut our titles with  our titles because we thought it would be most effective to show titles along with our shots. Furthermore this helped us cut down on time and meet a generous 2Minute length. This helps keeping the audience engaged and interacted and does not drag.

We made sure the names of actors and people who took part was larger than the title, for example.

'Starring' was in a smaller font size to 'Baris Timur' (our actor) this helps the audience focus straight onto the names as most conventional thriller movies do so.

Our font was 'ringbearer' and we thought this gave emphasis on our titles, we also thought this font was somewhat simple and fit our psychotic thriller really well.

EDITING Sound

We first used a very small part of a piece of uncopyrighted nursery rhyme, which we then edited to make our own by distorting it and adding echo and playing with the pitch. This helped us get a freaky and psychotic feel to the film opening. we then repeated the sequence and made it even more creepy using similar effects to show the contrast.

After we done the opening soundtrack with the nursery rhyme we then used two sound sequences which we found from soundtrack pro. As we wanted to make it our own and make it stand our we edited the distortion levels and echo effcts to fit our basement scene.

We needed to add foley sound as we needed to put a scream right at the end. we found a perfect scream and adjusted it so it syncs perfectly with our clip. we then played with its pitch levels to make it seem darker.

Finally, we exported it to final cut pro to add the finishing touches which we were not able to do on soundtrack pro. Doing this helped us get the best out of the soundtrack and make sure it syncs properly with  our film.

EDITING adding effects

These screenshots show us adding effects to the clips on the timeline. we primarily used colour contrasting and brightness effects to signify the flashback scenes.

we used the light ray effect as we thought it helps portray the flashbacks best.

We used the sepia effect of the scenes from childhood to imply that they are from the past so that it isn't too confusing.

We adjusted the speed for effect at some points (fast/slow motion) We used slow motion on the shot of the knife being brought down on the girl.

We used overlay on the psychos face at one point to create a ghostly effect.

setting up our scene

forgot to add pictures but I discovered them on my phone.

This was our first day of filming and managed to film the whole scene in 3 hours as we used our time efficiently

EDITING Constructing timeline

This is us putting the clips together, it went well but we have changed the sequence quite a lot since the story board as Dan pointed out a few errors.

We also thought of new ideas along the way which have effected the sequence positively.

deadline day

as 3PM approaches we have to ensure that we've done all our blog posts bar the evaluation ones.

We have taken screenshots to accompany each process such as editing and filming and will be adding them shortly

Rough Cut Feedback and update on changes

Changes

Overall Dan said he enjoyed our roughcut, here are a few things we decided to change after taking onboard his feedback

• We have added a sequence at the beginning of the flashbacks from childhood cross cut with the 'Psycho's' face to imply and make it clear that these flashbacks relate to him as they are from his childhood.
• We have made the shot of the lampost longer to build tension.
• We have added effects on the flashback scenes to make it clear that they are flashbacks (light rays and a sepia effect on the childhood scenes).
• We have Removed the slow motion effect from the shots of the girl coming out of the flash back as Dan said that it makes it difficult to tell that they are not part of the flashback.

keeping time of everything

We began adding titles to our thriller about a day and a half before the deadline, this meant we had to be efficient and minimise mistakes and we done this fairly quickly on a Thursday afternoon.

However this gave us only an hour and 40 to make our soundtrack and add a foley sound.

We have done this successfully and I will be adding the soundtrack here soon.

Time keeping is essential and I would advise all future groups to utilise their time well

beginning soundtrack

as my only lesson on Thursday is media at 3:15 PM I thought i should come in at lunch for workshop and begin work on the soundtrack.

As the soundtrack pro library is massive and finding a specific song was hard work as it had to sync with the video.

Our film wasn't completely edited so it was hard to sync the music and the timeline

Rough cut Feedback from Dan

Rough cut of our Thriller!

This is a VERY rough cut of our thriller - we have simply sequenced our shots roughly. Sound, ident, lighting and effects are yet to be added.

Some shots need to be fixed and cut a bit more, we haven't finished the rough cut to the standard we were hoping to (we wanted to have added effects and finished editing the lighting) so we have quite a lot left to do next week.

As you have probably noticed we have forgotten to take the sound off! please mute it. 

Third day of filming 14/2/13

Our final day of filming!

So the final day of filming has finally arrived! We had a great time filming the scene at Alexandra Palace of the psychopath walking along the path and towards 'The Basement'. The day went according to plan. finally the weather was good enough for us to film in!

We had about three hours to get there and back so we rushed on the tube with all the equipment to ensure we had a good 2 hours to film in. When we arrived we were annoyed to discover that there was quite a few dog walkers out on the path and a couple rollerskaing (Valentines Day). 

When we started filming everything went smoothly, but this scene contains the simpler shots of just tracking Baris )the psycho) walking from a number of angles and using different shot types. Although this was a simpler task than filming the basement scene it is our oppertunity to show off out filming techniques.

We followed the storyboard mainly using it as a guide since when we started filming we were inspired and came up with more shots we could use along the way, for example an extreme close up of Baris' fist which tracks around the front of his body ending on the teddy bear in his other hand.

We are confident that when we edit we will have enough high quality and technically accurate and varied shots to edit together to create the scene with tension building exactly the way we want it.

A few pictures from the shoot

second day of filming 12/2/13

The second day (well first day of planned filming) went very well...

We prepared the costumes (white t-shirts stained in blood), they came out very effective and realistic looking. We then constructed our set down in the basement using two barrels and a piece of cardboard along with our props.

Preparing the costumes!

Constructing the set using our props!

I think that the set we made looked realistic and effective, the lighting inside the basement was also exactly what we were looking for as it was dimly lit with ceiling panel lights. We attempted a few shots with the additional flash light but it looked to much like a spot light in the dark so we decided to film without it.

We took a number of shots following the storyboard, i particularly liked the extreme close up's of the girl's (Olivia's) face because they reveal her facial expression adding to the tension. We took point of view shots from Olivia's viewpoint and I also liked the effect these had - I can imagine adding some non-diagetic deep breathing noises to create a sense of being in her position.

We stuck to the story board but also compromised by trying out some extra shots when we felt it was ncessary, overall we stuck to timings well getting everything finished within the 3 hour lesson and got all the shots we needed and more to a high standard. I feel there is no need for us to re-film this scene.

Taking the tracking and circling around shots using the Dolly

Camera positioned low to take extreme face close-ups

Taking a high angle shot from a chair

First day of filming - making use of the time

To make use of the day I decided to go to the house and take the additional flash back shots from childhood which we have decided to include after my additional research and group discussion...

                                      

I used a skate board to create a dolly shot to track the child dragging the teddy bear along, it took a few takes and practice but proved to be an effective technique that we may use again.

  capturing a high angle shot