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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What I Learnt From the Match Cut Practice- Thursday 8th Jan

Today with Annabel we were continuing with what we started with Rebecca. In the first half of the lesson we got our camera's and tripod's and began filming our very short film. The whole idea of this filming session was to practice our match cutting. We were given a very short synopsis of a character entering the room, sitting down and exchanging a few lines of dialogue with another character. The idea was simple so that we could focus on our match cutting.

I feel that this practice session didn't go as well as our previous one, with the newspaper thriller. We found it quite difficult trying to film everything to match together. At first we thought it would be quite easy but we thought wrong. Our camerawork was actually quite good and I feel that we definitely improved on that area. I think that one of the most successful shots was our over the shoulder shot. Salone balanced the camera on her shoulder and followed Georgina, it went really successful because the camera stayed steady throughout and looked really professional.

Our only down fall during the filming session was that we were quite slow so we didn't get to finish all of our filming, which ruined what we did have when we came to editing. Once again though when we were editing something went wrong with our computer. This time whilst we were doing our log and capture it froze and wouldn't allow us to view our video. We had to unplug our camera and quit final cut pro several times. However though, once we did get going the editing went smoothly. We all took it in turns to do something but two of us started of with the log and capture and then the other two of us took control of the match cutting. We all got to do part of each thing but we found it ran smoother with just two of us in control of the keypad and mouse and the other two putting in their input. That way everyone got a turn and there were no arguments. I feel that one of our match cut's didnt really work, and that was when 'character A' was seen walking through the door and the camera then cutting to another angle of her walking through the room. I dont think it looked very good because of the timing, it didnt fit well together.

Each time we do a practice filming session I always learn something different, and this time it was that when filming we need to be alot quicker. It took us an hour and a half to film 14 seconds of film and we need to produce a film of about 2minutes. I dont think it was so much that we were slow at filming and that we wasted time it was more that we kept filming the scenes again and again because we didn't think they looked right. I'm glad we got this one last practice because now I feel slightly more confident for our thriller.

Monday 5th January

Today we had a match-cut tutorial with Marisa, which was actually quite fun. To begin with we were given a very brief synopsis, a man at home chain smoking while copying confidential files and plans onto a CD. We then had to create our own short film for it, but not actually film it, we just had to shot list our idea. The main idea behind it was that we had to include at least two obvious match cuts within it. We had about 20 shot to do this in which was surprisingly a bit hard. It wasn't until Marisa told us that we had to literally break down everything that it was easier to do it in 20 shots. I kept making the mistake of putting too much into one shot. That was the first thing I learnt from the tutorial. Once we had all created our own shot list, we watched the one that the media department had made as an example. Rebecca told us that if we were to produce something to that standard then we would get top marks. This made me feel a lot more relaxed because their idea was very simple and still worked. I think that when we come to doing our real thriller match cutting might be the trickiest part of editing. This is because if you don't get it right it could completely ruin the thriller.

Once we had finished that section of the lesson we then moved onto another practice. This time the practice filming actually goes towards our coursework. We were once again given another very short synopsis and had to shot list it. The synopsis was very simple, a character entering a room, with the second character already present, character then sits down and they exchange a few lines of dialogue. We had to do this in the same groups that we are filming our thriller in. Once again we found it quite hard to really break down the different shots to make 16 and in the end we only had 12. I think that in the next lesson on Thursday we're going to try and add in four more shots but if we cant then we'll just concentrate on making what we have look really good. 

For homework we had to each storyboard part of the shot list ready for the next lesson because we have to film and edit in that lesson. I think that might be a bit of a challenge for some of us because we're perfectionists and everything always has to be done a certain way.  

Thursday 18th December

This lesson with Gez was quite similar to the last lesson with Rebecca. Instead of watching short clips from thriller films we watched the thrillers that past students have done. It was an effective lesson as we were able to make notes on what it is that makes a good thriller. I found it really insightful because aspects I thought would have to be included you get no marks for whatsoever. For example I felt that if you didn’t have very good acting in your thriller then it could make your film and all your camera work and editing look quite bad. I was really shocked when Annabel, our teacher taking over Gez, told me that one of the films that I thought had quite bad acting in, got top marks. We analysed everything from the camera work to the editing to the lighting and the positioning of props. This lesson was really helpful and extremely useful because now we know what exactly needs to be done and to what standard. We also found out that having effective fonts for the title and naming the producer director ect is also really effective and that time needs to also be taken on this as well. Before we left Annabel gave us the task of watching some thrillers and coming back and explaining what made them so good.

Blogging Task- What I Learned from the Practice

For our practice filming session we were given the task to make a newspaper thrilling through the use of good camera work and editing. Each group was given one newspaper, a camera and a tripod for their filming. Before we started we had to storyboard our idea so that we had something to follow and that we weren’t filming of the top of our heads.
I was quite pleased with the majority of our camera work because most of it seemed to work really well considering it was our first time filming. I felt that the close up of Salone’s eyes didn’t look as professional as the rest. I think it’s because when I filmed this part the camera wasn’t on a tripod but hand held. When looking back it looked quite wobbly and unprofessional. If I could change something it would be to have done that shot again but using a tripod instead.
The editing for our group didn’t go quite according to plan. This was because whilst editing we forgot to save and the computer crashed. We had lost all our work. Our group then had to go back to a lunchtime workshop to try and quickly edit it all together. The first part of our editing went really well because everything was match cut quite accurately. However where we started to run out of time the ending didn’t look as good and ruined what had been done. We also didn’t have time to put any sound over the top so all you can hear is sound of us talking or people in the background which sounds really unprofessional. I do feel though that the short film made sense and was completely all over the place however there was room for improvement.
I learnt that the placing of all small things that you might think are irrelevant are actually extremely important. When we were filming Salone’s leg in the background was another group and you could also see their legs. By being able to also see their legs distracts you from looking at Salone and focusing solely on her. I feel that it also made it look slightly tacky. Your background plays an important part in presenting your story and if that’s not right then neither is your film.
Our group was really good in remembering the 5 seconds before and after the main filming. We managed to do it every time. The only thing that we did forget was to save our work while editing. Which was one of the worst things to do but we most definitely learnt from our mistake.
I am so glad that we were given the chance to have a practice filming session because it really familiarised us with the camera and editing process. I think if we had gone straight into filming our main thriller it really wouldn’t come out how we’d want it to. It also gave us the chance to make all the mistakes in the practice session to learn not to make them in the real thing. I also really enjoyed the practice as it was a good experience and a fun one.

Monday 15th December

In this lesson with Rebecca we watched short clips from five different films, "What lies beneath", "28 Days Later", "The Shinning", "Arlington Road" and "Collateral". We were also given a table that we had to fill in whilst watching the clips. We had to make notes on the lighting, use of camera, music/sound effects, editing and setting and location. This task was actually very beneficial as it gave us insight into what makes a good suspense thriller. Its not how complex and detailed an idea is but more often taking a very simple idea and adding in effective camera work. The Shinning is a very good example of this. A very simple idea of a boy riding his bike through a hotel corridor, no suspense. However place the camera behind the young boy following him, places the audience in a very vulnerable position as they are unaware of what is going on. Also the way in which that part of the scene was edited was also effective as it was just one long scene so you felt as though you were going along with the young boy.

We also brainstormed the different genres of thriller, which we all found quite difficult. It can be quite confusing when to class a film as a thriller or a horror. It was actually quite surprising how many different genres there are to a thriller and can be so opposite.