We started by brainstorming what a thriller is and the sub genres. We did this to help us get ideas for our own thrillers and get a better understanding of what thrillers are. In a lesson we looked at short film clips, we were looking at how the films build suspense towards the audience. I learnt that sound is a big part of creating suspense. For homework we had to choose from the many short films we watched to analyse as a way of getting more ideas for our thriller openings. I choose collateral to analyse. In the clip the sound was the key thing about the thriller so I used the idea of building up of sound in our thriller opening.
In our opening we have a black and a Greek girl in London so there are lots of different people round them who are from different background, so someone watching our thriller could tell it was set in London and possibly relate to the people in or around the shot. The girls starring in our thriller are both 16-17 but we wanted them to look slightly older because our thriller was aimed at a slightly older audience.
I would not want our film to be a big Hollywood buster I think it will be distributed by smaller companies in the U. K or it could possibly be a made for T.V because our thriller is about a girl being followed and it is an everyday thing that happens a lot, so we could use our thriller as a warning to girls and storkers out there.
Our target market is mainly young women. A typical girl that shops in Primark or New look, likes to go out with friends have a laugh, drinks occasionally, likes boys, goes college or sixth form, talks on the phone a lot, likes watching Eastenders and about 18 years old. 0ur movie is aimed at 16 plus because these are the main times you want to feel older, Start College and are at risk of a lot of things in the world.
We will market our film via billboards in the city, on the bus, in shops like Primark and new look. We could get someone famous to star in the film and mention that when we advertise to attract our audience. The main place I would want to advertise is on T.V because that is where the film will be shown. I would not advertise on the internet because I feel it will not be serious but on the other hand we could possibly make a site just for the film for our audience to find out more about the film and in a lot of ways it could widen the potential of our audience because a lot of people have myspace, you tube accounts which means there are a lot of people we could reach on the internet.
The filming experience has been very challenging but interesting for me because I have worked with cameras before but getting to grips with the five second count in was hard for me, as easy as it sounds. The easier part for me was setting up the tripod and putting the camera on it but my biggest challenge was final cut pro and soundtrack pro. I have never really used software like this so at first it was like I was learning a new language as time went on I began to enjoy using final cut pro and playing with the different sounds on soundtrack pro. I have learnt new useful skills. We used the internet to record our filming process on our blogs.
The preliminary tasks were a massive help because it taught us a lot of what we needed to know before we started our thrillers so as soon as we started our thrillers we wasted no time because we knew exactly what we were doing. We had a match cut exercise and we included a few match cuts in our thrillers. The storyboarding and planning took a while because we came up with an idea but we were told it was too long so we had to keep changing it but we split the tasks up on the planning part, so one member of the group would talk about music, lighting, the storyline etc. to the class for the next lesson. I learnt a lot about logging and capturing even though I didn’t do much of that part, I did more of cutting. We split the editing up as a group and everyone learnt something from editing. In terms of filming I think we all tried to film. I also learnt how to plug a camera into a computer via the hard disk. I learnt more about the software we used but at first I found it difficult and didn’t want to use the software but it has been another valuable skill. When I first heard we could not use copy right music I was not too happy but now I’m happy we used soundtrack pro because it made me be more creative because you think more about what sounds sound good together and why they sound good but I also thought at first having a variety of sounds to choose form was really good but when we were putting the sound together we found because there were so many sounds it was slightly harder to create because you feel like everything or nothing goes well with your opening. I also thought that the opening is a big part of why people want to watch your film and the sound has s big part to do with it, it sort of determines the genre and gives you a sense of the film.
If there is anything I could change I would of taken a more active role in my group and done more filming but sometimes it is hard when there are four people in a group to be doing something all the time.

Ursula Thompson
Thriller evaluation

To start out thriller we had to look at the conventions that make up a thriller, we looked at films such as The Shining, 28 days later and what lies beneath. From this, we could see what elements we need to include into our own work. We decide to start our thriller in an attic, as it has a minimalist set and creates a series of questions of what motives the actor has in our film. We also realised we needed our opening to establish the story line without giving away the film plot. We did this by putting subtle hints to what the films about into the opening such as camera clicks and hiding the actors face.

Our media product represents teenagers to adults from the nature of the film; it also represents women to be vulnerable as she is being followed by a man. It also gives a bad representation to black males as portrayed by the actor playing the main role.

I think our thriller film would be a made for TV film or internet downloads, as there are similar films which have been released such as ‘one hour photo’ which may make it unpopular in cinemas as people would have seen a similar film before. It would be funded by a small independent distribution company.

Our thriller is aimed for an audience from late teen to early 30’s, with more interest for men of a middle class status, the overall typical person to watch my thriller is Chris who is 25 who works in an office, who’s taking his girlfriend to the cinema. It’ll also be a mainstream film, as it the film maybe to specific for a niche audience. As I think it contains everything a good thriller needs to be entertaining.

To attract an audience to my watch my thriller I would put big named actor and actress. This would create a lot of attention towards my film. To advertise I would have trailers shown between 4;30 and 9;30 on main channels such as mtv, channels one to four and the channel it will appear on. I would also advertise on billboards in cities such as London.

From filming my thriller I have realised I need more experience using the camera, as it would take two or three attempts to get the shot right. Also the lighting was a problem, as we were filming on different days the weather would influence how strong the light was meaning the takes didn’t flow as the lighting would change. The editing side of our thriller was a lot easier then the filming as I had a better idea of what I was doing on the computer. Throughout making our thriller we have used the internet, as we have blogged our process and what we did. Using the internet has broadened our audience by using programmes like Vimeo, Blogger and You Tube.

Through the whole experience of making our thriller, I have learnt so much about the filming and editing. If I was to make another thriller I would make my story board more intricate so I could follow it through bit by bit. I would also have better time management on my group as we had to start late as a member of our team was consistently late.

Thriller Evaluation

Thriller Evaluation

Frequently in thrillers there are the conventions of suspense. This is shown in the opening of my groups’ thriller ‘The Following’. We created tension by not showing a specific characters face by using camera shots and camera work such as point of view and over the shoulder. We also included camera work that included tilting from the feet to the back of the head and a close-up of the feet. This creates many questions to the audience, as they don’t know who this mysterious character is. Another thriller convention that was included was the setting of the attic. The attic gave a creepy mis-en-scene and showed a contrast between light, the dark lighting in the attic and the natural lighting from the outside. The last panning shot of the different pictures was influenced by the movie ‘One hour photo’. Having this shot influenced by this movie thriller connotes that the character in this movie is a slightly disturbed person which adds to the convention of a thriller.







In the opening of this thriller there are only two protagonists. Looking at them you can see that they represent two opposite characters that can attract a wider audience. The only comparison between both of them is that they look roughly around the same age. This is 16-18. Whereas ones a male this is showed to the audience by clothes. A baggy black tracksuit represents a typical adolescence because this is what they mainly wear now. The fact that it’s black connotes that the character is very dark and mysterious. In the opening the hood is up for the whole time which creates this character to be very anonymous. But looking closely you can see that this person has a black ethnicity. This particular person is represented slightly as a creep because of the constant obsession of the other character. Whereas the other protagonist is a female who is represented as a typical teenager who may even be superficial. This is shown by her going to a clothes shop and then a phone shop purchasing items. This character has a Greek ethnicity which is opposite to the other character which creates a different representation especially to the target audience.
The movie ‘The following’ seems like it would be a small independent UK release distributed around a descent number of UK ‘arthouse’ cinemas. This is because a UK audience can relate to it more with the characters and the rest of the mis-en-scene. It wouldn’t get any bigger than this because it doesn’t have a big enough budget or have a wide enough audience to become a Hollywood blockbuster.
For the thriller ‘The Following’ the target audience for this film would male and female 17-21 year olds. This is because the two characters in the movie have a totally different race from each other which widens the target audience. As the audience is around 17-21 they would mainly be in a college/sixth form or university. You may still get workers who are this age who didn’t want to carry on their education but would end up having quite a low paid job. Thinking about the class of the target audience it would mainly be mainly a young working and middle class, this because at this age you are only the class of your parents and I find that this audience would be more of a niche audience. The reason why they are a niche audience because the movie doesn’t appeal to really big audience or have a big enough budget to be mainstream. For example the target audience would in include someone like… Phillip, 18, is doing his last year in college but has a part time weekend job in Sainsbury’s. Likes getting clothes from Topman, Primark and H&M. And has an I-pod, Nintendo DS and a Sony Erricson.
The trailer for the movie ‘The Following’ would be shown on channel 4, Film 4, the 15 minute break between movies on sky Action/Thriller. Also other channels that appeal to the target audience. You could also see the trailer on ‘You tube’ for those who loves the internet more than television. It wouldn’t be on the really big billboards on top of buildings, but it would be on the billboards on the bus stops. There isn’t any ‘star’ lead role in the movie they are all fresh up coming new actors. So this would be they’re first big British film.
I’ve enjoyed making this film a lot even though I wasn’t behind the camera much, I did do some of the point of view shots. Which I did like especially feeling like a director shouting out action. But what I found the most challenging was the Final cut pro. It was new to me but it was easy to get the hang of especially how we filmed a certain way which would make the match- cuts easier. But my favourite was doing the sound and music, watching the film at the same time as adding all the sounds for example the door opening and closing and the alarm of the phone going off, doing all of this was fun to do. Using the blog was like having a diary on to the internet. Because it I had to record down everything we had that linked to the thriller and the process of making it. To have the film then launched onto the internet would be perfect because it would get a bigger audience because other people would then send it to other to go and watch. To also see the movie on Youtube would be good because then we could get views and peoples ratings on how they feel about the movie.
Making a movie without a storyboard is nearly impossible which is why it is there for a reason. Even though we didn’t always have a storyboard with us, we had a very strong idea of what we wanted to film and edit. So we kind of had a mental storyboard with us. Going back at the preliminary task I found it very difficult to do the match-cuts on to the computer as I was very new at it and I thought that I would never get it. But after moving onto my own film it got easier as I knew what I wanted so I then got the hang of it. What I have learnt from all of this is that it’s not that easy making a film and editing but having the post-productions makes it feel like a routine as there is always a deadline for making a film.
As I got to watch back the film with an audience not just to myself, I got to hear their feed back. A lot of it was very similar from everyone and that was that we had very good match-cuts, the credits was very nice and simple using just black and white. Having the credits simple didn’t make it cheesy or tacky. They also mentioned the fact that one of the characters was wearing a red coat which made her stand out to the audience which made everyone know that she was a target. They also liked the sound effects that fitted perfectly was the door opening and closing and the sound of the camera click. Looking back at the thriller I would only change little things such as a female playing a boy. It would have been much easier and faster if an actual boy played that character. But apart from that I wouldn’t change anything else especially the main female character wearing a bright red coat because it made her dominant to the audience as she stood out.


The Following from 283goswell on Vimeo.

Thriller Evaluation

There are various conventions to a thriller movie, there’s the image of a vulnerable woman or child, hidden identities, and so on. The typical convention that we used was that of a woman being placed in a vulnerable situation, being followed. We have shown her being followed in quite a busy public area. I feel that this creates a more thrilling sense because people often feel safer in a busy area. However we’ve shown that even in places that you feel most safest anything could happen and anyone could be watching, another convention of a typical thriller. For example the setting of What Lies Beneath is in her marital home. A place we would feel safest and think that nothing could happen. We also challenged the typical convention of a male following a female to a female following a female; however the follower’s identity is not shown in the opening. We felt that keeping their identity hidden keeps the audience wanting more, that they would want to carry on watching to find out who it is. It adds more intensity and excitement.
I see The Following as being a small independent UK release film. I think this because it doesn’t seem ‘glamorous’ enough to be a big Hollywood blockbuster, and I feel that would take away the fact that it’s a British film. It reminds me very much of the film Kidulthood, a low budget film based in the UK. I think that if Kidulthood had been a big Hollywood blockbuster it wouldn’t have had the same effect and reached its target audience. The characters in the film are like your everyday teenager and so the way it was filmed really reflected their life and situation. I feel the same with The Following. According to the director of Kidulthood the film only cost just short of £800,000 to make, however the film still went on to be a great success. Many short films are partly funded by the National Lottery; they have helped 115 feature films and over 300 short films. Even the well known Bend It like Beckham was funded by the Lottery. I feel that The Following would also be funded in this way or through a small film company.
The Following would be aimed towards your average everyday teenager/young adult, from the age of 15-22. A typical example of the type of person that would watch The Following would be Andrew. Andrew is 18 years old and is currently in his second year at college. He has a part time job working in a sports shop and plays football every Sunday. During his free time he enjoys, going out with his friends to the cinema, bowling, pub or just relaxing at home. Andrew is ambitious and wants the best life possible. He is very much a typical student, broke and struggling to get to where he wants to be in life and always wanting what’s better. The Following would appeal to both male and female viewers because it’s very in between and doesn’t sway more towards one gender.
The marketing of a film is very important, you have to know your target audience and reach out to them in ways and places you know they will see. The way in which you would advertise your film also depends on the amount of money you have to do so. Usually a small independent UK film doesn’t have such a large budget. In this case there are film festivals, internet campaigns and possibly even advertisements in magazine’s or newspapers. I see The Following being shown at a film festival such as the Edinburgh International film festival because, because one of the categories is British Gala. This is for a new UK film production that has a well known British actor or director. This leads me onto another way of marketing the film. Having a well known actor starring in the film can attract a lot of attention to the film which means less money needs to be spent on things such as magazine advertisements. The film can also be heard about through word of mouth which plays quite a huge part in the marketing of any film.
All throughout the filming process I have learnt so much, and am still learning. I thoroughly enjoyed working with the camera because it was a new experience that challenged me to begin with. My biggest challenge when first using the camera was being able to move it left to right, up and down on the tri-pod with ease. In both our preliminary tasks and final thriller there were scenes where the camera had to follow the actor’s feet. I must admit that I found it extremely hard moving the camera in time with the feet to begin with; I found that I would go too slowly. Eventually practice almost made perfect and I did get the hang of it. I think the thing I found the trickiest out of everything was the editing. I would say that is my weakest point about the whole process. Whilst editing, using Final Cut pro, I found the log and capture aspect quite easy to grasp. I found fitting the match cut clips together quite fiddly as you had to cut the clips down at exactly the right point or it didn’t look right. It could be quite time consuming but with the dedication we showed I feel that it looked quite professional. Throughout the whole process I have kept a blog, an online diary, of everything we have done. To begin with I wasn’t too keen on the idea of blogging after each lesson or after each time we had completed something. However I started to really get into it and enjoyed reflecting back on the work I had done. After each preliminary exercise we would place it onto our blog and evaluate it. I enjoyed putting these video’s onto the internet because it was a chance to show what we had achieved in that lesson. Once we had completed our thriller openings they were then placed onto Vimeo. This made me feel very proud because others were able to see the final outcome of our film. Also, by placing it onto the internet it has potentially attracted people that we may have originally thought would not be part of the target audience.
From our preliminary task, the ‘match cut’ exercise, to now I have definitely learned a lot and made good progression. Before beginning with this exercise I hadn’t realised how much preparation you needed to do before filming. To begin with we first came up with a rough idea of what we would do and then created a storyboard. Once we had our storyboard we had to construct our shot list, a list of every shot that you are going to film and at what angle. I found this at first quite confusing and slightly time consuming but when we came to filming our final thriller I really appreciated how useful a shot list is. Unfortunately when we came to filming our final thriller we didn’t have a shot list and we were making each shot up as we went along. This did have its benefits; we felt more free and less restricted however it was slightly more time consuming having to think there and then. I think that this was definitely one of the more vital things that I learnt. When filming for our preliminary task the camera was still quite ‘alien’ to me and I did find it quite hard to control and move. However practice did help and when filming for our thriller I had begun to improve. I found holding the camera harder to control than it being on the tripod because it didn’t always look professional when I did it. The only area that I feel I haven’t made a drastic improvement on is the editing. From the preliminary task to our final thriller I still struggled and found it quite tricky. I don’t think my editing is appalling but I feel it definitely needs improving. Overall this whole exercise has been a learning experience and I feel a quite successful one at that.

The finale part of the thriller

Friday 27th Febuary Gourgina and I both decided to complete the thriller by adding the soundtrack to it. I started it off by just playing around with the insruments and seeing what sound with what, and by what sounded like a thriller. After playing around i found a violin and an acoustic bass that worked well together and fitted in with the short film. We then tried to find something that was very suttle right at the begining, but because we couldn't agree on what to have we ended up the acoustic bass at the beggining but at a low volume. After figuring out the music we then had to add in the sound which included the door opening and closing, the alarm for the phone and the click for when you take a picture. Adding all of those sounds at the right place was fun and i enjoyed it the most. Seeing the overall outcome i felt a sense of relieve that the opening to a thriller is finally over. But out of the whole experience i enjoyed the filming and the music/sound the most because i find i am better at it compared to the rest of the group.

Monday 16th Febuary- Editing

On monday's lesson we began to finish the rest of our editing, just adding in the finale match-cuts and so on, so that their will be less to do for thursday's lesson. We finished majority of the editing as it was simple to do because we thought about the editing and the match-cuts in advance when we was filming. But we didn't have enough time to include the last couple shots. So because of this one group member went to workshop to add in the last shots.

Thursday 25th Febuary we officially finished the editing by adding the finale extra's. This included the credits, two fades, one at the begining and the other at the end, snap shots to show to the audience that a picture is being taken and to emphasise this we changed the colour to black and white. After this we then started to carry on with the music and sound track, to continue with it by stretching it longer and by making it fit into the oppening of a thriller.

Monday 16th Febuary

Monday 16th Febuary me and Ursula met up at Kats house to do the rest of our filming. As the lighting changed from natural to orange at the begining we had to re-shoot a little of the attic scene. There was the part where i had to walk into the shot pick up a camera and then walk down the stairs. But because we had to re-shoot that section Kat forgot the camera and so we had to improvise to try and use a phona as a camera. We also shot more of me walking out of the house and going to follow Kat. As we got outside it was easier to shoot because there was more space but sometimes you would get people trying to get into the shot. Because it's suppose to be me following Kat we had to try and show this by getting both of us in the shot but yet i couldn't stand too close to Kat because then it wouldn't look realistic. To make our thriller slightly different to others we used a lot of point of view shots to show more suspicion to the audience. We also used point of view shots because when it comes down to the editing we want to add snap shots to show that the person is taking a few pictures.

As we moved on to the high road it was slightly harder and tireing to film because it was so busy and some people would ruin the shot and it was horrible having to carry the tri-pod around. It was also difficult because our idea was to show Kat walking in and then out of a couple of shops. We did end up doing this idea but we had to constantly keep showing the shop workers what we have done because it's advertising the shops. We didn't officially finish our filming that day because we don't know how to finish the whole thriller.

Thursday 22nd January

Thursday 22nd January the group was supposed to do some more filming. But because one of the group members became ill we couldn't do any filming because it takes place at her house and as her as the main character. But in the lesson we was told to work on the sound for the thriller. We thought there was no need to because we got told in tutorial to do the sound last. So we worked with what we had and dicided to do the sound for the oppening of the already edited section. Because we started the sound so early we already know what we want for the thriller we just have to edit it to the finale piece.

Monday 26th January

On monday 26th January our group started editing the first section of our thriller. There was slight difficulty in doing the match-cut with me walking on to the camera from one angle to another, because we had to make sure that it was the same foot landing in the other angle. It was also difficult doing the editing as a group because we all couldn't exactly agree on how to edit the whole section. But overall it did come out well but the only problem was that as we saw it overall we noticed that the lighting has changed because it got darker outside and we had to use the light which is more orangey than natural lighting.

Monday 16th February

Today myself, Ursula and Solone continued with the filming of our thriller opening. We had been unable to film for the past two weeks due to medical reasons on my behalf so we all agreed to meet up today to catch up. We had to re-film the section where Solone is walking out of the room because the lighting looked very different. Whilst filming we came up with a match cut in order to emphasis a certain action. Overall we filmed quite a large section of our thriller today but we still have quite a bit more to do. We also found it very difficult filming in a public place because of all the pedestrians in the street. The first out door parts were filmed quite good as it was in a quiet area with hardly anone around. We used a variety of shots today including longshot, point of view and close-ups.
As we didnt manage to finish filmign everything that we needed to we all agreed to meet again during the week.

Monday 26th January

In this lesson with Rebecca we all decided that instead of filming anymore that we would edit together what we already had. Myself and Ursula did the log and capture part as we both work together really quickly to do that and then Solone and Georgina put the clips together but we were all involved in deciding where the in and out point should be. We found that our clips fitted together quite well and to begin with everything was flowing together quite well. When we got to adding in the clip where Solone is walking out of the room we noticed that the lighting looked completely different and didn't match at all.

Sunday 25th January

Today the girls came to mine so that we could finish off the filming that we didn't quite get to finish on Thursday. This consisted of a close up of the mobile phone and Solone walking out of the room and down the stairs. The close up was quite quick and easy to film, we found it easier to do this holding the camera rather than on the tripod. However we had to film Solone walking out of the room quite a few times. This was because we couldn't keep up with the movement of Solone's feet so it didn't look right. Eventually though we got a shot that was better than any of the others that we had done. Because we still had time left we decided to film the very end of our opening which is where the camera pans across a lot of images of one particular girl. We all agreed that this shot worked really well and looked so effective when watched back. Once we'd got that done it started to get quite dark so we couldn't film anymore.
At times we kept forgetting that we'd left things out that shouldn't be in the shot and had to re-film but that only happened once. We also needed to have Solone picking up the camera of a side table as she walks out of the room. However we didnt have a side table and spent ages trying to make a laundry basket look like one. In the end we stopped that and I went and got a stool from my living room that worked quite well.
Overall this filming session was quite successful as we filmed everything that we needed to get done and even our ending.

We started off by looking at T.V drama sheets and analysing them to get an idea as a class what T.V drama were and what sub genre were in TV drama. We gathered the key factors that explain the popularity of T.V drama is that people find stories enjoyable and satisfying to watch.

Sub genre T.V drama
Soap E.G Eastenders
One off dramas
Dead set

Legal
Ally Mc Beal
Action E.G lost
Science fiction
Dr who
Cop shows/crime
The Bill
Risqué
Diary of a call girl
Hotel Babylon
Medical dramas
· house

We looked at lots of different crime drama’s the n labelled which one was which to see how well we knew our crime dramas. There was another sheet for teen dramas and we watched an extract from skins and had to construct our own representation in groups.
Then we looked at narrative, structure, production, target audience, viewing pleasures and mise-en-scene. We watched an extract from life on mars to analyse the mise-en scene on a big A3 paper.
In the next lesson we started to look at representation and we watched extracts from shameless. We filled in sheets about location, community and regional identity of the soap extracts including shameless so we could get a better idea of representation. In pairs we had to write down soap stereotypes of characters
Ethnicity E.G. black or white
Religion
Aggressive men
Old person
Strong mature women/ sexy man
Teenagers
Sluttish mother
Villain man etc.

Soap visual techniques
Soaps have their own particular style of camera work. We identified what camera shots were and how to establish when it is being used and why.
Some camera shots
Close up to show emotion, tension, drama and true feelings
Two shot is used to see characters relations with each other
Long shot is used to establish a scene, such as the front of a café or character’s house
During conversations over the shoulder shot is often used and gives the audience a sense of realism.
Point of view shots are used so the audience get to see what a specific charater is looking at
To show power relations between characters or to empathise people’s feeling, high and low angle shots are used
There are also other shots such as big close up. Extreme close up, medium shot, medium long shot, long shot, extreme long shot and medium close up.
After looking at camera shots we talked about editing in T.V drama. We analysed shot extracts from soaps and thought about
What pace is the editing? How does this effect the viewer
How does the editing a show communication between characters?
How does the editing help the audience to focus on a particular character?
In another lesson we wrote a short essay on how all the aspects of the mise-en-scene create mood, atmosphere, place and time on life on mars?

All this was a warm up to prepare us for our thrillers. In the next lesson we talked about cinema audiences and we were given a list with films and if male or female predominantly go and watch the film to see the importance of audiences. we then brainstormed what thrillers were with sub genre.

Thrillers
Murderous passions
supernatrual
action
spy
crime
Sci-fi
Acquired identity
Innocent on the run
Psychological thriller
kidnapping

We watched short extracts from thrillers in the U.K and USA including 28 days later, Arlington road, what lies beneath, the shining and collateral. For homework we had to pick one of the several clips and analyse one of them looking at all the things we looked at in previous lessons but mainly the way the director uses sounds and camera angles to create suspense, I picked collateral because i felt it was not necessarily scary but created fear and suspense for the audience.

Collateral clip

The next lesson we analysed previous student work on thrillers looking at setting and location, camerawork, editing, diegectic and non diegetic sound and lighting. By doing this we were looking at mistakes we should not make in our thrillers and taking ideas from the professional thrillers to student thrillers.
In the three hour lesson we watched Bourne supremacy which is acquired identity thriller, innocent on the run, psychological, crime, action thriller. The lesson after that we started planning for our practice thrillers. We were given two task to make someone reading a newspaper look interesting and character A is sitting a room then character B comes in and sits opposite character A and they exchange a few lines of dialogue so we planned in groups how to do this. My group decided our plot was a women; whose face was never shown in full, walking from outside a building in a room with the newspaper always in camera view for the first task. Then keep the storyline for the second task. We were given a film storyboard to help plan the character A/B synopsis.

When we finished gathering all the footage we started editing to minimize it to the bits we need to accomplish the tasks.
Editing for me at the moment is one of my weaknesses so I found that part of the task harder to do but the group helped me to edit and I think the final pieces were good but could have been better with more time but we were given time from our first task to the second and by the second practice film I felt more confident with filming and editing because I learned from my mistakes in the first task. The lighting was quite bright for the second one because we had to do it in a classroom wheras the first task had a mixture of lighting from bright to dime. I felt it was slightly more easier doing all the filming n just one room which is what we did fort he second task because we mainly had to think jus about the camera angles/work and editing afterwards. The first one was outside and in a lift and various other places so it was a lot more load. we kept the idea of the classroom with book and bags around so it didn’t jus seem like we didn’t think whether bag were there or not. For the first task we tried to use the stereotype of a mysterious sexy woman with the way we moved the camera up and down her body and the way she crossed her legs when she sat down.
We did not fully finish the character A/B situation but I felt it was slightly more of a success. With the practice filming it gave us all a chance to see what our strengths and weaknesses were so we can help each other get stronger and so we know what each person would e allocated to do for the thrillers. We tried to do too many match cuts in the second task but not all of them worked, I think the over the shoulder shot was the most successful when the two characters exchanged words which we didn’t get round to and when character A was waling over to character B. We attempted a point of view shot but it didn’t really work and didn’t look as professional as we would of liked it to look.
On Monday we started to think of ideas for our thrillers and plan them out to make a pitch for the class on Thursday lesson. We did a shot list exercise to warm us up. Then we started to think of what to do and say in our pitch. At the end of the lesson we thought about what each person would be best at to talk about in the pitch. I wanted to plan and talk about music and lighting. We meet up as a group out of media time and started to plan for next day lessons because we were doing the pitch.
On Thursday’s lesson we had one hour to finish off or start talking about what we would say in our pitches but my group had already done that so we just practiced and spoke about target market as a group. Then we starting having doubt about our storyline because we were told its too complicated and long for the limited time we have. We decided as a group to take a few bits out and make the storyline more simply. We kept the main idea but changed it to suit time. When presenting our pitch we kept the storyboard and other ideas but changed it to suit the new shorter storyline. We were also given a filming schedule to talk about in our pitch.
in mondays lesson we did a soundtrack tutorial to familiarise us on how to use sound in our thrillers. we listened to the soundtrack editors of casino royale and watched short clips from casino royale and used our own different sounds over the clips, then we went back to our character A and character B short opening and put sound over it E.G a door opening for someone entering the room. i found this really helpful becasue we need sound for our thrillers.
Thursaday lesson my group used the three hours to start filming our thrillers.

Thursday 22nd January

For this three hour lesson we decided as a group that it would be more effective to film our attic scene. We had to take out the camera equipment the night before(wednesday) so that it was all set up and ready to film on Thursday. The girls came to mine between 9, 9.30ish and we filmed for two hours solid. I feel that this is one of the best filming sessions that we've ever done. We got straight on with it and didn't waste any time. We started from the beginning of our thriller so that way we didn't get confused. A particular shot that we found quite difficult was the over the shoulder. This was because we were trying to film a picture on a mobile phone but the screen was too bright and we found it near enough impossible to do. The picture was coming up as part of an alarm and I think this is why it was so bright. When we opened the picture up in the gallery it was much larger and easier to see, so we decided to film it this way. We had hoped to complete the filming of the first part where the boy is getting ready before leaving the house but we had about 2-3 more shots left. Because we wanted to have all of this done and ready for Monday's lesson we all decided that we will go to my house on Sunday. That way we can edit and put together the first few shots.

my preliminary film

On monday 19th January we went straight to the computer room to have a tutorial on how to use the sound on the computers. For a practice and for a better understanding we took certain clips from the James Bond film ,Casino Royal, and had to watch and then add the sound to it after. We then got the chance to add diegetic and non-diegetic sound to our past filming we did in the classroom. It was quite difficult but it can be very easy to understand once getting used to. I had a reasonable footage of added sound to my short film but it wouldn't upload to the blog. But it doesn't really matter because we still have an example of Kat's one on the blog to represent our groups work.

On thursday lesson the group started filming at Kat's house, because she has the write setting. We thought that we could get the scene's in the attic first and out of the way so that it would be much easier. As we haven't got enough time in total we planned to film in order of the storyboard so that we can edit as we go along. Filming was quite difficult because we had to clear out the attic to think about the mis-en-scene. Doing the filming with the group was fun. Because it's abit more easier when you don't have a time limit. It was also interesting because as i am the protagonist i got the chance to dress and act like a boy. Which was good because the character is a boy and it's one of those things that has to be done.

On the friday we took out the equiptment to use for sunday. This included the camera, the battery, the tri-pod, the light and the light stand. Filming on the sunday was just finishing off the routine with the boy in the attic. This time we was racing against time, because we started later than thursday. Because we started later it started to get darker outside so we then had to use the light which was quite difficult because we kept thinking about if the lighting would match from the previous day. Compared to the natural lighting that we used before the lighting that we used looked too orangey and before we could see shaddows. But overall we did end up finishing the first part of our thriller.

Preliminary Film

This is the final outcome of my groups preliminary film, which includes match cutting and a sound track. I don't think that this is a very good piece of work but for a first attempt it's not bad. Even though when we were filming Georgina didn't knock on the door, whilst adding sound effects I thought a knock fitted it quite well. The only effect that didn't work was the sound of footsteps as Georgina was walking in. The reason why it didn't work was because she was walking on carpet but it sounded like she was walking on concrete. There was no sound of footsteps in the sound bank that fitted in with our video. This was noted down because it could have been a problem when coming to film our main thriller.

Monday 19th January

This lesson was quite different to our other lessons because we got to learn all about soundtrack pro and adding music onto a film and the effects it has. We started off with a Casino Royale exercise, by watching the trailer and carrying out a sequence of tasks. There were three sections that we had to look at they were, sound layers, soundscapes and sound sequences. I learnt that there are three different areas to sound layers, there's dialogue, music and effects. We had to work our way through the three sections reading carefully what was there and also listening to advice of professionals.
The first task was in sound layers. We were given a sequence from the film and we had to control the sound by turning on and off different tracks and seeing what effect they have on the final outcome. What I found very effective was being able to hear the footsteps of the woman as she was walking. When I switched off this effect it didn't sound right at all, as though something was missing. Also the background noise of the tropical setting with the sounds of birds ect, needed to be there, when taken away you almost question where the setting is. It doesn't seem real.
The second task was to create our own soundscape from some of the still images provided from the film. It was a good exercise because it got you to think about what sounds are really necessary and where they should be placed. This task did get a bit confusing because as you were putting down one sound you could still hear the previous one so trying to get the volume just right was a bit tricky.
The third and final task was to create our own soundtrack for one of the sequences provided for us from Casino Royale. I think this was probably the most trickiest out of all three tasks because there was so much going on so you had to really pay attention. I found this hard because the scene I chose, the stairwell fight, is quite quick so knowing when to put things in was confusing because everything was so fast. I did enjoy it however and felt a great sense of achievement once i had finished it.
These exercises made you realize just how important music is in any film and how much effect the music can create on an audience.
Once we had completed the Casino Royale exercise we then went onto adding music and effects onto the short practice film that we had all done. This bit was really fun because we got to use soundtrack pro and there was such a variety of music and effects. The short film that we had done was actually extremely short and didn't look very good. However as i began adding effects to it, such as a door knock, the handle moving, footsteps and a heart beat, it immediately made it look miles better.

Monday 12th January

On monday we were given the task as a group to think about our pitch idea for our thriller. As a group we have to be ready to pitch our idea to the rest of our class members, our teachers and the technitions.But before this happened we were given a sheet by Rebecca to think about key features we should think about. This included mise-en-scene, editing, sound, lighting, camera-shots, setting/location, audience, a story board and a production schedule. As a group we also had to know ourselves key icons in a thriller that we should include in the opening of the thriller. In the lesson we had already thought of a very brief idea of the begining of a thriller. But because we ran out of time as a group we decided get together on wednesday to be at the workshop, so that we would be ready for thursday's lesson.

Wednesday 14th January we all attended the workshop like we planned and worked on our preparation for thursday's lesson. We used our brief idea and then we then just worked mainly on the editing, sound, lighting,camera work, setting/location and the storyboard. Doing this we listed numbers from 1-18 which was the number of shots we were using. We went through the story slowly and bit by bit so that we can go through and write down what is happening in each shot (mis-en-scene). We did it like that in that format so that i can take it home and draw out a storyboard that we all agree on. We spoke about the lighting, it being a natural light as the original thriller idea was going to be mainly set outside. In the workshop we also decided on our production schedule, we spoke about what days we can all work together out of lessons. As a group we gave each other homework to write in neat and with more detail on the key media conventions. I was given the task to draw out the storyboard so that we have something to follow when it comes to the filming and the editing, as we decided to write down and draw out how it may possibly look but in 2D. So that for the next day we will be ready for our pitch.

Thursday 15th January the group was slightly nervous on talking to the whole class. But i was confident because we had all our ideas sorted out from the previous day. But then one of the technitions entered the room to see about every groups idea. He then got to our group and then said to us that our idea sounds to complicated. As a group we did dissagree with him, but he then explained and said that some of the best AS oppening to a thriller coursework are the ones that seem very simple. So we thought about it and decided to keep the same concept of the idea but to just change the camera shots and to take out varius shots at the begining. In the end we still liked our final opening to a thriller idea but the group and I found it quite frustrating because we whent through all that work and spending ages drawing out a storyboard for it to be scrapped. It was also very annoying because it made us more nervous to pitch our idea to the class because it seemed like we wasn't ready because we didn't have a story board written down we just had it written down mentally. But before that we spoke to our teacher Annabel so that she has a better understanding of our idea than the rest of the class.

Thursday 15th January

In this lesson we had to pitch our thriller idea to the whole class. We were given the first hour and half to finish up on any planning that we had left so that in the second half we were all ready. While we were running through our pitch one of the technicians was looking at our idea and thought that it might be a bit complicated. He showed us examples sent from the exam board and how simple yet effective they were. He then presented us with a new idea, it was interesting and as a group we took it on board. We had worked so hard preparing for our original idea that we had become attached to it. When it came to presenting our thriller opening we went with the idea that the technician had told us. It didnt go too well as we weren't prepared at all. However we done our best and just about pulled it off. After the lesson though we were all talking about our idea with one of our teachers and we all feel more comfortable goign with our original idea. I think we would just make some slight adjustments to make it that bit more simple but apart from that the main idea will stay the same.

Wednesday 14th January

Today the whole group decided to come to media workshop so that we could complete our planning and organising for the pitch. We began by completing a shot list to the opening of our thriller so that it would be easier when story boarding. It’s also a lot easier to see what might or might not work when everything is written in a shot list. This took us pretty much the whole hour because we kept changing things when realising certain shots would not work. It was also the first time we fully ran through the whole of our opening talking about each individual shot. In total we had about 17/18 shots but that could change when we begin filming and realise that some things may not work. For example, when we see the two teenagers getting on the bus will be easy to film however, we feel that filming them getting off might be a bit tricky.

Monday 12th January

This lesson with Rebecca was an extremely vital part of our thriller coursework because we had to plan for our pitch. We have to pitch our idea for our opening sequence to the whole class, our teacher, and the technicians in our next lesson. We were given an hour and a half in Rebecca’s lesson to come up with our idea and plan how we are going to pitch it. There are eight key areas that have to be included in our pitch, which are, key images and icons, the settings and locations, lighting, camerawork, music, audience, a storyboard and a production schedule. We as a group spent a lot of time discussing what our opening sequence would be and how we would create suspense and tension. To begin with we noted down our ideas and then moved on to the setting and location, lighting ect.
Unfortunately, we ran out of time and were unable to complete the planning for our pitch. We had all taken down notes on all the key areas and agreed to meet during lunch to complete it all.
I think the pitch will be our biggest challenge because most of us in the group myself included are daunted by the idea of standing in a room full of people and having to stand up and give a presentation.

Match cut practice session