evaluation 8

The feedback we got back from the audience was very positive. Everyone thought it was a very topical subject, as recently the subject has been in the news, making it believable. Therefore it was a subject that the audience watching, college students, could familiarize and identify with.

I also showed the film to older adults who felt the opening would also attract a more older, mature audience who felt the voicemail message at the end of the opening was truthful representative of the emotions and feelings of a adult in the situation. This ultimately shows that although my target audience is the younger generation it could also appeal to older people who can identify with the parents story line and widen my audience.

evaluation 7; Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Our preliminary task was a 'not very good' attempt at a short scene. It consisted of poor camera work and little editing. There were various problems with the sequence of shots. In the first shot someone knocked the camera which made the camera work look dodgey and un-professional. When shooting our actual footage we had alot more room, filmed hand held and made sure people didnt crowd the camera to ensure this did not happen again. This problem also taught me to shoot at least 2 or 3 of the same shot so we could choose the best one.

The first establishing shot of 'Moe' walking down the corridor had no variety which makes it boring to watch and loses the audiences attention. This made it clear to us that the first couple of shots would have to include a variety of shots to grab the audiences attention and keep the intrested from the start. Our opening shot was a pan which made our establishing shot. We then made sure we had assortment of different shot types ranging from closs ups, to over the sholder shots, to extreme close ups. Another problem with the first shot was the fact it cut 'Moe's' head off making it uncomfortable to watch. We did use this type of shot on purpose in our thriller opening as Sarah unzips her jacket but that was because we wanted to focus on her taking off a piece of clothing to hint at the intamacy between David and herself.

These first shots in our prelimery match shot established that our setting was some kind of school. To establish the subburben settings that our Thriller opening was set in we used a pan from the sky to the house. Sarah looks very small in this shot and the point of view shot that shortly follows of her from David's point of view makes her look small, helpless and prey-like.

After the match cut we didnt film enough between two shots so if you look closely enough Moe looks like he moves too forward for the timing of the shot. When filming our shots we made sure we filmed more than less so we would have plently of shots to choose from. For shots where we were showing a change in time we added a fade in editing which is what we ould have used in our match cut but didn't.

When filming the coversation between the two actors the over the sholder shot we took was taking for a much too high angel. This shot should have been taken level with the eyeview of the actors. Because of our mistake the shot over the 'Lucy's' sholder resulted in her head blocking 'Moe's' face. We had to ensure this would not happen in our Thriller opening because facial expressions would be essential as we were not allowed dialogue and therefore anything we wanted known to the audience that would normally be spoken would have to be directed through body language and the actors facial expressions. We used an over the sholder shot in the opening sequence of shots for our Thriller opening as Sarah puts on her blusher. This shot has no problems that we had in our prelimery match cut which shows that we learnt from our mistakes.

Another problem with our prelimery match cut was that when we shot the over the sholder shots of the conversation between 'Moe' and "Lucy' there was alot of space to the right meaning the conversation was squashed into the right hand corner of the shot and was uncomfortable to watch. We didn't repeat this as it would of looked un professional and 'slap dash'. Throughout our trailer there is a good amount of space Sarah often has alot more space around her then David as this makes her look small, vunrable and prey-like which suits her character as the antagonist. David is made to look more threating and mysterious as alot of the shots are just of his hands or his back.

Evaluation Question 6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation 5; Who would be the audience for your media product?

The demographic of our audience is mainly teenagers. Into partying and having a good time they spend their weekends drinking and making the most of their weekend. Most of them will of had some experience with the misuse of drugs meaning they will be able to identify with the events in the film. The majority of the audience will be girls which challeges the normal conventional mainly male dominant target audience of thrillers. The film could also aspire to parents who would easily identify with the worry and panic the parents of 'Sarah' go through in the film.

Tinuke, 17, a dancer and artist attending brit school for performing arts & technology, loves socialising with friends, shops is American Apparel, dances, enjoys art and watches misfits on a school night. On the weekends she goes out partying all night and wakes up the next morning with a hangover having to do her college work to ensure she can can go out the next night aswell to make the most of her weekend.

Evaluation 3&4; What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/ address your audience?

I have an online marketing strategy and this is a step account of how I am going to construct

that strategy. I plan to make a trailer for my video and upload it on websites such as Youtube and Vimeo.

I would then distribute it to my friends on facebook who i would ask to carry on the distribution by passing it on to their friends.

link: http://vimeo.com/

I would also create a blog and myspace page hoping for positive feedback and to spread the film further. These sites are something that the target audience of my film would use in their spare time which hopefully means that the distribution of my film will be successful.
The reasoning behind all of this is to create a buzz around the film in a cheap way that is achievable by students.

http://www.myspace.com

As the film become known more widely i would try and send it off to be shown in film

festivals such as Sundance, Tribeca and other various film festivals around the world. At the same time i would try to distribute it to independant cinemas around the country such as 'Screen on the

Green'.

http://www.tribecafilm.com/festival/

Evaluation 2; How does your media product represent particular social group?

Both of these shots shown have similar characteristics. Like the movie Marathon Man our thriller focuses on two characters; the protagonist (Sarah) and the antagonist (David). As the Antagonist, David was made to look the opposite of this being; dominant,

sly and like a predator. The amount of time the camera focuses on David is much shorter than the amount of

footage shown of Sarah. Therefore the audience will empathise with Sarah who is seen to be an innocent girl trapped in a house with this mysterious, unnerving character (David). The similarity of the two characters Dr Szell and David is that both are looking at their victim implying they have plans that they wish to implement on our protagonist characters.

As the protagonist Sarah was made to look venerable, innocent and like prey .

This convention

runs throughout a lot of thrillers where the story line follows good vs evil. The room she sits in is full of furniture which fills up a lot of the frame making her look very small to her surroundings. Much like the shot of Dustin Hoffman while he is tied up waiting for Dr Szell this shot makes her look very vulnerable, alone and prey-like.

We tried to portray each of our characters personas from the very start of our thriller opening. Sarah's pink, girly bedroom empahsizes her innocence and niavity. When she arrives at David's house their flirty body language is youthful and easily relateable to our younger target audience. However to an older target audience, who can relate to having a daughter, this makes her look very out of place which creates an un easiness in the audience.

Final Film

Evaluation 1; In what ways does your media product use, develop or challange forms and conventions of real media products?

I have chosen to compare my shots with 'A Touch of Evil'. I will use the shots to speak about conventions of a thriller.

The long shots in 'A Touch of Evil' are used to establish the setting which is very conve

ntional of a thriller movie. We used a pan for our establishing shot.

The shot panned around the room until it found Sarah standing doing her makeup. We were careful not to show much

of her, hiding her identity.This would create an

enigma code and arouse suspicion, in the audience, from the start of the film.The shot also starts to tell us about Sarah's character; the room is fairly big and suggests she is from a 'comfortable' background. The cream and baby pink walls have connotations of innocence and are typical of a 'teenage girl'. However apart from this the shots main purpose is to set the scene.

The other establishing

shot we used was a pan from the sky to David's house as

Sarah rings on the doorbell. This establishes the area we is very suburban and allows the audience to familiarize themselves with

it, signifying that something of importance will happen here.

Another convention of a thriller is an iconic item

. In the 'A Touch of Evil' shots above we see a close up of an explosive. In our opening it is drinking glasses. We filmed a close up of the glasses as

David pours Vodka into the glasses. This amount of time this shot is shown for is very long for just watching someone pouring a drink this suggests to the audience

that the drink is significant in the plot. In most thrillers the antagonist has a certain weapon significant to them. In our thriller the drink is David's weapon which he spikes with Rohypnol.

Like ' A touch of Evil' our thriller follows two characters; a antagonist and a prot

agonist. Sarah is shown in a very innocent light with a girly bedroom and clothes. The first sequence of shots focus's on Sarah which builds a relationship between Sarah and the audi

ence making the audience sympathise with her. David however is a dark character the first time we see his character he looks very mysterious as we only see his dark shadow. His facial expressions are misleading and the audience feel uncomfortable watching him as they start to see

the story unravel.

Thriller preview feedback

Skills Audit: Creation Of Titles

When creating out titles we had to make up names for each role. We were told to do this to make the opeing more realistic. The first title say "Candi in association with.." We chose Studio Canal as our production company as we felt our film would be one they would take intrest in. The live type font we used for out titles is a Livetype font. We choose this as it was edgy and fitted our thriller genre. The titles varied in blue and red and when adding them to the shots we were careful to leave them on the screen a long enough time for the audience to read them. We ensured we put the titles in shots of not much significance so not to draw attention from the important shots. When importing the titles Tania had to render the shots as a movie and then import them into final cut. From there she could drag them down from the files onto the timeline. The official title of the film was big and bold on a black background this made it stand out and look striking.

Skills audit: Sound

We found the soundtrack the hardest part of our task. I came up with the first idea and Tania built on these producing our final soundtrack. To start I tried to pick a melody that would fit the first sequence of Sarah getting ready. I wanted to create suspense but not climax the moment with music at the same time. The melody i choose is quite slow and delicate but has a menacing feel to it. We added a ticking sound to build pace in the shots which added to the tension.
When the scene has cut to the pan of the house tense music is introduce, the ticking sound is again introduced and the volume increases. This is played throughout the waiting and fetching of the glasses scenes and continues until David returns to the living room.
The music changes when Sarah drinks her drink where the violin reduces in volume and the only sound we hear is the ticking sound signifying the importance of this shot.
The music then increases as the go upstairs until it is cut and the title appears with a loud drum noise. Following a machine beep the recorded and edited voicemail is played.

Skills audit: Editing

The first stage of editing our rough cut was to put each shot into an indiviual folder and name each one ready for Final Cut Pro. For each part of out Thriller we would import the folder so to start off we imported the sequence of Sarah getting ready. We choose the shots we wanted and dragging them down to the timeline put the in order to achieve the desirable effect. We increased the speed of time in alot of these shots to build pace and maintain Sarah's 'day to day' normal life effectively.
The next scene that used alot of editing was when Sarah waits for David as he gets the drink. Here we focused on two scenes; the first being David going to fetch the drink and the second being Sarah waiting. To do this we cut the footage we had filmed showing a change of time between each shots.
The other method we used to show a change of time was a fade. We used this twice; once after David has poured her drink and second before they go upstairs.
The shot of Sarah drinking her drink was slowed down to show the significance of the shot and build suspence.
Finnaly when editing the last shot we slowed the speed down to create tension and a sense of fear in the audience.

Skills audit: Filming

On the 9th of March the rest of my group came to my house to film our thriller opening. We started straight away consulting our storyboard to look what shots we would take first. Taking various shots of Sarah 'getting ready' to go to Davids house me and Tania who were filming/directing tried to shoot a variety of different types of shots to make sure we made proper use of the camera. Some of these shots included; a extreme close up on Sarah applying mascara to her eyelashes, a pan half way round the room as an establishing shot and a close up on her hand as she opened the door. We also made sure that her face was not fully shown throughout the first sequence of shots creating an enigma code and suspense within the audience.
We then went down stairs and took a panning shot of sarah arriving at the house to show a change of time. Following this we took a match cut of sarah ringing on the doorbell and a shot of David approaching the door through it. We then followed David and Sarah into the living room with the camera directing David to place his hands on Sarahs shoulder slightly pushing her into the room. This made David look dominant and suggested Sarah was the vunrable character in the situation.
Following this we went and took a pan of David entering the kitchen and various shots of him taking the cup out of the cabnet. Focusing on the bottle of Vodka and glasses with closeups we made sure the audience would establish the relevence of them through these choices of shots.
We then shot the most important part of our opening which was David drugging Sarah. We did this taking medium shots and close ups of Sarah and David drinking. Me and Tania directed David to look over at Sarah as she drank at this point to sinify the spiking of her drink. Shooting a birds eye view shot of the two drinking made Sarah look like the prey and highlighted David as the predator as we saw him fake, drinking a drink. We then shot a close up of David clasping hold of Sarah's hand and leading her out which indicated a intimate side to the two.
Finnally we shot them both of them going upstairs with closeups of their feet and another birdseye view showing a change in time. The final shot we took was a upper body shot of David closing the door on the camera. This will create suspense in the audience as Sarah looks vunrable and trapped, sitting on the bed, in the background of the shot.

Evaluation Question 8) Audience feedback and comment

Here are is a wordle of our feedback forms, it shows the words that were most repeated. As you can see many words relate to the theme of our film; drugs, sex i.e. words, party,heels, sexual. Other words such as 'small and production' show that it is clear we aim for niche audience, as it seems like a small production film.

Pitch

We were unable to put up the powerpoint of our Pitch, however it is much clearer in the video. Our pitch went considerably well, Sarah and Rosa came up with the brief idea, and we all elaborated on it. Our working title for now was 'the drink' however this was a cliche and obvious title, our final title became 'taken'. We explained our plans for filming and our schedule. We told them the various shots we would use to express the events in the film, i.e. the glass being significant in the film.

Rough Cut

Animatic

Our storyboard was a total of 40+ shots, we made sure we included several match cuts and various shots, consisting of long shots and close ups. Fast paced editing is used at the beginning of the film in the extract where Sarah is getting ready. We show what our panning shots will lead to, for example the long shot of the house. Our storyboard will act as guidance and plan for our filming and shooting day. Obviously some shots may not happen, and our filming may lead to creating other innovative shots where we feel necessary.

Skills audit: filming and editing preliminary Match Cut exercise

Unfortunately, due to illness, I did not attend the lesson that our group was going to film the originally planned story board in. Therefore i attended a catch up class after college where we re-storyboarded the short film. When storyboarding we were careful to include possible shots for match cuts and avoid breaking the 180 degree rule.

The first shot was a long shot of our actor, Moe, walking down the corridor. After looking at the final piece I think improve this shot and make it a more interesting piece of film we could have shot cutaways of closeups on his feet however we didn't have enough time to do this. The next shot was where we choose to use a match cut. To do with this we panned the end of the first shot as Moe
opened the door one side and then shot a upper body shot of Moe opening the door from the other side.

We then filmed an over the sholder shot of Moe walking towards our Actress to introduce more of a varitey of shots. However this did not entirely work because as Moe sits down the girls head hides his face. Next time when filming we must be more careful and pay alot of attention to continuity. The piece of film finishes with a shot reverse shot which should have been at eye level because we filmed it too high giving the wrong effect we were trying to achive.

To edit the clip we used final cut pro which was good practice for our thriller opening espcially when doing match cuts. We also got to practice putting the camera on the tripod and taking off.

Skills Audit: Livetype and Sound

LIVE TYPE

In the beginning of our thriller we have been instructed to include a title sequence. To make these titles we were shown how to use a programme called Livetype. The programme makes the task of making titles easy by giving a library of pre-animated effects and visuals that can be quickly and easily modified to suit easch individuals visual tastes. In the introduction of the programme we were shown how to choose a font type, font size, font colour and a background with its individual motions and colours. On these titles we can then apply various effects such as shadows and smoke to provoke different feelings within the audience. The titles can then be cut to the right length of time and placed on a timeline where we can ensure our titles appear where we want on our thriller openings.

SOUND

It is a requirement that we must use our own music that we have made to accompany our thrillers. This is due to copyright that some music may be protected by. Music is going to be key within our openings to create atomosphere and suspence; music to suit the genre. To help us with making our music we were given a introduction to Soundtrack Pro. We were shown how to open different folders to open different instruments and sounds, how to drag them individually to the timeline building up each beat and intrument to make a song and how we could also choose the length of time each beat/ instrument played depending on what sound we wanted. Once we had created a song we could increase and decrease the volume using the volume tab this could be used to build suspense by gradually increasing sound.

Match cut prelim rosa & david