Monday 23rd febuary- Return from half term

After have a very needed break i knew that this week was the final deadline and it would be hard work. Since the last editing sessions before half term, the new shots slipped into place very effectively. We also had a very very good match cut clip that made us all proud. As a group we deiced we didn't want the credits to be extremely plain, we wanted something original and daring.

Me and Rhianna worked really hard on the music together which took us hours to find the right sounds. And even when we did find the right sound there were some difficulties. we had to place them in the right place and match them up to the thriller. we also had to cut and re size the music tempo and speed. we also wanted to use some original breathing sounds and other sounds from our shooting day.

I realised this would be harder then i thought as we would have to cut the sound from final cut pro and insert it into soundtrack pro.But we got it in the end!

Monday 16th feburary -Half term editing

During the halfterm our group decied to attend the extra editing session. half of our group went to queens wood to capture more shots and match cuts and i stayed at college to consturcut our sound track for our thriller. This was the most enjoyable task i have had as i reaily enjoyed working with the programe.

Since our thriller was not entirely finshed it was very diffclut to actually construct the music. so i deiced to find sample sounds which i thought would suit our opening. As a group we were kind of clear of what sound we wanted. Distored, certain insturments for example like vialolins and very distinct sounds.

Monday 2nd February - Editing session

After recovering from that freezing but productive filming day it was now time for us to look at our shots, and to see if we could actually put our storyline together. when i 1st arrived to this lesson i was rather excited about editing and couldn't wait to get stuck in. unfortunately i was only able to capture and log a few clips.

Then wing took over, he arranged the clips in to sub folders of clips that were similar. By doing this it made it a lot easier to see what shots can go were in final cut pro. As we had a lot of ruining scenes we had to make sure wing was not ruing back and forth. It needed to be continuous.

After we arranged the clips we looked at them all, however we did realise we would probably have to have another filming session during half term. As we wanted to capture more footage.

I was rather disappointed with this lesson as i would of liked to of done a lot more when it came to editing in this lesson but hey I'm sure there was many more to come.

Monday 26th january- FINAL idea!!

After many times going back and forth of what storyline would right for our thriller, as every member of my group thought the 1st idea was not that great.So as a group we used this lesson to re-plan what we could without wasteing anytime as we wanted to get everything done, so we could concentrate on filming and editing.

New thriller idea
Our new idea is about a male character running and stumbling through a dense and abandoned forest. But the male would have to look very disturbed and distressed, like he is running from someone.His clothes will be disheveled, torn and bloody, also his body will have cuts all over.
Now at 1st i thought this would be way to simple and would become boring with just some one ruining though a forest

But after thinking that even though simple it could be something very interesting with the right camera angles and match cuts. we was very clear that we wanted some sort of special effects but not sure what type. Also we deiced there would be no verbal narrative and instead capture audiences attention by visuals and music. Our target audience is still the same.

Thursday 15th january- making and presenting a pitch

In Thursdays lesson we had to construct a pitch of what was we wanted our thriller opening to be about and then we would have to present it to the class.

In my group we decided to break down our pitch into sections so that each group member could have their input.

• camerawork
• music
• audience
• production schedule
• settings and locations

Our 1st pitch which we presented in the class was about a girl who was being stalked for which seemed several weeks. Suddenly the girl would be kidnapped from her home by the stalker. but she does not know this. And she would be taken to a outhouse of some sort. she would discover that her life has been watched by this stalker. And she would have flashbacks. We wanted our taget audeice to be 15+ and we also wanted to make sure we had good match cut.

After we presented this pitch to the class we received good feedback, but our teacher had some concerns so we knew we would have to reduce its complexity

this was the 1st time constructing and even presenting a pitch for anything so i was already nervous. however when i got in front of the class i wasn't so nervous, i rather enjoyed it.

Thursday 18th December-Target audience

This was our last lesson before the Christmas Holiday's. And our final topic was Thriller films and audiences

On one of our handouts it stated that 'No thriller film is made in isolation. the audience should b in integral part of the decision making process at all stages. The Primary objective of you Thriller film is to appeal to an audience. If a film has no audience it will not make any money'
Audiences are extremely important to the movie business. And in any industry the market forces apply and the product must make a profit.

In this lesson we learned a lot of useful things about cinema audiences for example :-

• we found that males tend to watch mostly action, thrillers and adventures
• we found that women to watch mostly musicals, romantic comedy's, children films and period films

We made a lot of notes about audiences and how we must consider certain things when making our thrillers.

• we can define target audience in terms of age,race , gender and social class.
• Also the choice of our actors may have an influence on the audience who come to see the film.
• movie certification of a movie may define the audience, E.g A 18 certificate may suggest a certain level of sexual scenes.

Dystopia Thriller Evaluation

In a group of four we were asked to produce an opening to a thriller film including titles which had to last around two minutes long. There are many types of thriller sub genres;sci-fi thriller ,murderous passion, action ,political and crime thrillers are just some of the ones we reviewed in class. With efficient resources available our initial response was create a thriller based around the theme of kidnapping. After our first session of filming we realized that the idea that we had was too complicated. After rethinking our idea our second 

response was to construct physcological thriller consisting of only two actors synopsis being: A young male (protagonist)running through a forest who is being followed by an unknown male.

DYSTOPIA

     

This seemed like a very simple idea but shot with the right camera angles and editing skills we realized that this could be a very effective thriller opening. Thrillers are high stake crime stories in which a protagonist is generally in danger. 

Film openings are very important as it the first scene the audience will see to decide whether to watch it or not. This influenced me to start with an unusual setting a forest, which is unconventional of the thriller films that we had studied; As thrillers can often take place in setting that are typical to everyday life i.e. ‘28 Days Later’ is set in London this is familiar to us as we see recognizable buildings that are known to us as a British audience by doing this I would say that this film appeals less to an audience that is not predominantly British. Making the forest a good location to set our film as it could be anywhere .

By setting our thriller here we feel isolated and almost uneasy as an audience.It also creates the question of where and why this person is here and creates a tense atmosphere

In class we analyzed several different clips by doing this we were able to identify the type of camera angles and shots used in this type of film. Generally close up were used to show the emotions on a actors face. Fast cuts were used to create build tension and long frames were used to create suspense.

 

My favourite opening was the ‘Arlington Road’ due to the editing and use of camera it was very fast paced which caught the eye of the audience straight away, I think this had a very big influence on my thriller opening. Our opening is very fast paste with loads of match cuts and different use of camera angles. Another idea of our film that challenged the convention of a real thriller is that it starts with action with out giving away to much information ,one way we did this is by using no dialogue which added tension to the film .I think this helped gradual build up by doing this the audience will not be able to predict easily what will happen next. Also the music in Arlington road had an impact on my own production it was a simple drum beat with a fast tempo melody for the background. We used the natural found sound from our footage this added a sense of realness and professionalism to the movie you can hear sounds of footsteps, running, breathing and even the sound of leafs crunching underneath the feet of the actors which is also a simple idea. In a sound tutorial we learnt that adding the right sound effects in at the right time makes it more interesting. Another way we used the conventions of a real film was finding an interesting way to use titles we filmed our titles and as if they were running with the actor making them original this also gave less of a disruption to our film as it is meant to be a continuous as with the running. Also the scene of the off focus was influenced by Arlington road this creates a big question

 on who is this man.

              

I would say Dystopia doesn’t represent one particular social group because it has very versatile opening. But may appeal to a younger audience which is predominantly male,As research showed that in 2007 a majority of films watched in the cinema by males were Thrillers. Also the actors used in our thriller were young males this could also broaden the target audience making it appeal to young females as they would like to watch young popular actors on the big screen. Another factor that could make this film appeal to a particular social group is the race of the actor him being Chinese could mean that he would have a fan base that is around this race.

My target audience will be both sexes, age 15-35.They will be young and out going. They love surfing the net going to the cinema to watch different genres of film especially horror and thrillers; the type to rent out a DVD and spend Friday night in with friends. Their lifestyle will be of spontaneous so watching films that are original will meet there needs as it will be something that they haven’t seen before. Things such as tension suspense mystery will please them as they are daring and would want things to keep them engaged. My film has characters the audience can emphasise with and appeals to my target audience by starting with action and feeling sorry for the protagonist straight away.I would say that this film would be a small independent UK release due to the low budget of the film ;distributed around a small number of UK ‘art house’ cinemas to gain recognition for the production team behind it as it is our first film I would say Dystopia doesn’t represent one particular social group because it has very versatile opening. But may appeal to a younger audience which is predominantly male. As research showed that in 2007 a majority of films watched in the cinema by males were Thrillers. Also the actors used in our thriller were young males this could also broaden the target audience making it appeal to young females as they would like to watch young popular actors on the big screen. Another factor that could make this film appeal to a particular social group is the race of the actor him being Chinese could mean that he would have a fan base that is around this race.

I would also use internet as a way of addressing my audience Social networking sites such as ‘myspace’ and ‘facebook’ could be used to watch trailer and to get coverage for our film. By showing trailers and giving information about our film will make my film well known to its target audience as the would use sites like these from day to day. Also the film would be released onto DVD to make profit and to give more time for the movie to be distributed.

On the other hand I think my thriller has the potential to be a Hollywood blockbuster due to the storyline not being based on British social culture also the fact that it is not based of the theme of realism.

How I Will Attract My Target Audience

My film will be advertised at Bustops on posters train stations and as I pointed out earlier over the Internet. This will attract my audience also through word of mouth as people would have heard about this new original film. Also by releasing trailers on the Internet could attract a global audience as user all over the world could view them. The lead star is a person easily recognisable to my target audience a young handsome up and coming actor who is seen as a good role model in the public eye. He would have already appeared on TV in TV dramas such as ‘The Bill’, ‘Doctor Who’ etc.

What I have learnt through out the process of making this film

Through filming I have learnt that it is a time consuming process. We had to shoot a number of various shot types even though we may have not needed them but it just meant that we had a wider range of shots to choose from during our editing.In our first filming session we experimented loads through camera angles placing members of a group up on a tree to try and find an interesting camera angle. By playing around with camera angles we managed to get a lot of different shots. By having practice session filming previously I’ve learnt that using close ups, point of view shots medium show and high and low angles and the use of focus are very useful in terms of creating a thriller feel. The use of close ups show a characters emotions. In terms of editing and finalizing our film we assigned ourselves different roles to help speed up the process. Wing and Addil had the task of editing on a program called final cut pro in this program you could add special effects slow down and speed frames add transitions create match cuts ect,Niquita and I were also part of this by giving our input into the effects that sold be used and the order of how we wanted it.Niquita and I were in charge of making the sound track on A program Sound Track Pro 

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 I enjoyed using this program as we had a chance to experiment with different sounds.we thought that distorted sound and simple sounds went particularly well with the footage. Also the Internet was a big part of research for this project. We used the Internet to find information about thriller films.By being able to upload our video on sites like Vimeo and Blogger could widen the potential audience for our product. Web sites like blogger gave me the chance to keep an online of what has been going on. Overall I think that my thriller was a success in terms of creating atmosphere and delivering a feeling of a thriller film. The different use of shots created interest and helped the simple storyline. It is exiting as it has an impact on the audience due to the being hooked from the beginning through tension build up. My film follows the codes and convention of a film introduction by not giving away too much information, which makes it a good opening. However if this film was to be made again I would be more involved in the editing process and have more of a say in to how my ideas could be inputted into my thriller. The shot lengths mis-en-scene music and storyline all contribute to the success of the thriller opening.