Final Evaluation

 During this media course, our main aim by the end of it was to have produced a short opening clip to a thriller film. We watched some thriller movies so that we could have a grasp on what type of conventions made the film a thriller. Films such as ‘What Lies Beneath’ and ‘Saw’ were thrillers that had inspired some of the things we had included in our own work. The aim of these films is having a story line that build up tension by using different conventions and to have the audience on edge and jump at certain clips of the film. Thrillers have many conventions that make the genre different when compared to films such as Comedy or Romance. We studied the different conventions that made a thriller a ‘thriller’ film and tried to reflect them in our own thriller. A lot of the camera work done contributes to making these type of films build tension and tries to make the audience feel a certain way.

The camera techniques that we picked up on were the establishing shots that nearly all films use at the beginning of a film just to make sure the audience know were the plot is set. This also includes long shots that pan a view of an area maybe from a high angle. Another technique that is used a lot in thrillers is the close ups and extreme close ups on characters facial expressions or close up of important props used during the film.

We made a simple story line and told it through the camera shots. Our short film had many different clips jumping from back to front, by doing this we thought it would help build up the tension that every thriller has. The main story is that a girl had been kidnapped while she was walking home down an alley way near Liverpool Street station at night. We made sure our storyline was short and simple and because we didn’t have a lot of time to tell the whole story we thought that we adding a little twist to the story through flash backs that jump from different scenes helped us with the aim of our thriller. When doing our thriller we made sure we focused on the camera shots and getting them just right. We used an establishing shot of Liverpool street train station to show the audience were our film was set in. The shot pans over the underground station looking from a high angle then it jumps to a shot of the name of the station but zooming outwards which we thought was a good effect.  Other shots that we used included the tracking shot which was a close up on the actor/actresses legs walking along the alley way. This was another good shot as we thought it built a bit tension and made people wonder were they were going and who it could have been. 

  

After doing all the filming we used Final cut Pro to edit our footage. First we had to long and capture everything and the had to cut it all up and put it back together in the sequence we wanted it to be. We added blank screens so we could put in the title screens that credited our group and the things we did during the filming process. Editing the film was probably the most fun as it was nearing the end of all the work we had done. We still had to work hard and together to make it as perfect as possible. We split the group up and focused on different parts e.g. the editing of title screens and the music.

Our thriller film would be distributed through advertising in many different ways. So that we could get a large audience we decided to advertise our thriller on the radio, billboards and television all over the UK and maybe abroad if it gained good reviews. We would eventually launch it on DVD so that people who missed it at the cinema, they would have the chance to have their own copy to watch whenever they wanted. 

Our target group is aimed at teenagers from the age of 15 upwards, female and male. In general people who are fans of the thriller genre as we thought it would be the most appealing to. We aim to attract our target group by using young aspiring actors and actresses to show off their great talent. We thought about how other film makers attracted their audiences and followed the steps, for example, having young/teenage children on the posters attracted that type of audience. 

 Since doing this thriller I have learnt a lot. Being new to everything I managed to pick things up easily. Things like getting familiar with using the camera equipment, using the editing programme and trying to produce the music was fun and worth while. Making a film takes a lot of patience as it takes a lot to make everything just perfect. Just by editing short clips over and over I managed to pick up new tips along the way which will helped in the process of making the short film.

 If I was to do this again, I would do a lot of things differently. Firstly to start with a step by step plan with an amount of time to do things in and to actually stick to it strictly. Making sure things are done on time is important because if you need to change things you will get time in the end to fix things up, it is crucial that time is used wisely. Another thing I learnt along the way is to keep in mind what you are trying to put across to your audience and how you want to make them feel.

 I think that we could improve our thriller by putting in more focus on how we want the audience to feel while watching the thriller. Personally we could have tried to put in more camera techniques to make the opening just that bit more scary.

 The music also was something we could work on more. Instead of having the on going background music, I think we could have added in more shorter sound effects. By doing this it could put more feeling into the thriller and might make the audience more jumpy and build up the tension which is something that a thriller is really aimed to do. 

AS Thriller Evaluation

When we started planning our thriller opening we based our idea on the movie ‘Saw’. Even though our final edit of our thriller is nothing like ‘Saw’, we based our ideas on it because they are scary films that most teenagers and adults have seen. We wanted our thriller to give the audience an eerie and creepy feel, so that is why compared our ideas to ‘Saw’ because we had all seen the films, and there’s a lot of torturing in them and even though we don’t show torture in our thriller opening, we gave viewers the idea that it was going to happen if they watched the film.

We used many different camera shots in our thriller to create suspense. We used close-ups of the girls face to show fear through her facial expressions and close-ups of the boys hands when he was putting on the surgical gloves to give a creepy feel and to raise questions to the audience, for example; what does he need gloves for? Or what is her going to do to her?
During the alley way scene filmed in Liverpool Street we did tracking shots on the actors feet to show viewers that there was someone definitely following her. So we filmed both the actors’ feet as they walked, to create suspense and to show viewers he was getting closer to her.
We also used a low angle shot in the alley scene, where you see the back of the girls’ feet as she walked as the camera was slowly tracking up her body. This was to show that she was by herself and there was no one else around her and also to make the alley way look almost as if it was endless.

During a lesson before we started filming our thriller openings we watched a documentary on thrillers and film making. At some point it talked about music to a thriller opening, and showed us a clip of the opening to ‘The Shining’. Although it was of a car driving up into the mountains, as an audience we could sense that something bad was going to happen later on due to the music, the music was eerie and made the opening to the film very effective.

I think our thriller appeals to people who enjoy thrillers or horror films, everyone could watch this film but they have to be over 15 years old due to the content. It isn’t really a family film – so it wouldn’t be advised to bring your take your children to watch it as a family outing because it’s more of a film that you would go and see with friends, rather than your parents because it is going to be quite gory and scary but also there are young actors in the film so it appeals to younger people.

I think our thriller at first would only be shown in the UK because it is a British film and all the actors are British. But if the film gets good reviews and lots of people go to watch it then hopefully we could show it in other countries as well such as, the USA and see if it does as well there as it did in the UK. Since our film would be British, we would think about working with distributors like Working Title Films that distribute and produce British films, as well as Universal.

Our target audience is 15 years old and over and they would be mainstream viewers because our film will be well publicised in the UK and on the internet, so we want to encourage a lot of people to go to the cinema and watch our film.
I think our target audience would be ‘aspirers’ because they’re young and they could look up to the actors in the film and inspire them to take on a drama course or maybe even pick media studies as a subject at college, or university. Or even look up to a character in the film, for example; in a film where someone gets kidnapped or is getting tortured and the victim is the main character and they manage to get away with their quick thinking and good plan – most people who watch this film will want to be like them if they ever get in that unlikely situation.
An example of someone that would fit in to our target audience would be David. He’s 17 years old and he is almost finished doing his A Levels at college. In his spare time he enjoys going to the cinema with friends, and especially like thrillers and horrors. He would be a perfect example because he is over the age of 15, he likes going to the cinema in his spare time and his favourite genre is thriller and horror – seeing as our film is 15+ and the genre is a thriller he would definitely enjoy it, and it would be the type of film he would pay to watch.

To make sure our film was well publicised as the lead role we would definitely have a young actor, who is a role model for a lot of young people, someone who is recognised with previous experience in previous popular films, for example, Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter).
We would also advertise our film on the television, on satellite channels (Sky TV), on digital TV (Freeview) and on channel 4 so people only have channels 1 to 5 can still see the advert for the movie.
Also we would advertise our film by doing a competition, we could ask a question about the lead role and give 3 possible answers and the winner that gets the right answer would win a shopping trip with 2 other friends and a spooky trip to the London Dungeons all expenses paid. I believe this would interest a lot of young adults and definitely encourage people to go and see the film.
We would also show the trailer on television, and viewers will feel suspense, and have questions just by watching the trailer which will also make them want to watch the film because they will want their questions to be answered.

From the process of producing the thriller opening I experienced using a Mac computer for the first time properly. I am now able to use Final Cut Pro and know how to edit footage on it, I’m glad I learnt how to do that because I’ll need to know how to use this programme next year for media studies, and in the future if I decide to further my studies with media I’ll probably need to know how to use it.
I also learnt how to use the website ‘Blogger.com’ where we posted our thoughts each time we worked on our thriller opening. I think this is a good and easy way to keep track of your progress and so other people and read it and see what you are up to, it is also a good way of teachers seeing our progress as well. ‘Blogger.com’ also made me realise that the internet is used by millions of people all round the world and would be an excellent way of getting our thriller noticed by a lot of people. For example we could upload the trailer to websites like ‘Youtube.com’ so people can easily search for it on the internet.

The most valuable lesson I think was learning how to do match cuts on Final Cut Pro because we have quite a lot of match cuts in our film, and it really improved our footage and made it more exciting in the final edit. Another lesson that really helped us during filming was the ‘Card Game’ exercise, where we got a chance to practice filming using all the equipment, I think this was a good experience where we got a chance to try different camera shots and angles, and it got us thinking about what shots we should use in our film. It also gave us practice using Final Cut Pro because we had to edit our footage from the lesson.
One of the reasons while our thriller opening was successful and we finished it on time was the plans we wrote out. We wrote out two detailed plans of the two scenes we were going to film. We wrote a plan for the filming session in Liverpool Street and when we were going to film in the college basement. We wrote exactly what the actors were going to do and what camera angles and shots we planned to use. We made sure we stuck to both our plans and it made it a lot easier when it came to filming because all we had to was look back at the plan and we knew exactly what shot to use for each part. If we didn’t write out plans, it would be no doubt that filming would have been a lot for time consuming and we didn’t really have that much time either.
Something I could criticise about our filming was that the girl was wearing two different outfits for each scene when she was suppose to be wearing the same clothes, however when the rest of the class saw our thriller they thought it worked and thought it was two different people (even though it was suppose to be the same girl!), so may be it could be used as a good mistake.
Another thing that we could have changed with more time is when we were adding the music to the final edit in the editing session; we weren’t able to fade out the main music before the scream at the end of the opening. We wanted to fade out the music so we could create suspense and shock viewers when they heard the loud scream on the title screen.
Overall we did work very hard on filming and editing, and it was a relief when we were able to hand it in on time. Even though there is room for improvement we were very pleased with the outcome of the final edit.