Thriller Evaluation

Thriller Evaluation

After some advice from our media teachers, we decided we wanted to be creative with our thriller opening, as they weren’t really looking for your ‘bog standard ’ thriller or cliché. We were told that normally students would do openings about stalkers in hoodies, kidnapping or serial killers. So we crossed all ideas regarding those types of stories off our list. After an hour of brainstorming a couple of ideas, we pitched three main ones of three different sub genres (you can find our initial ideas in an earlier blog) and later came to a final decision of which to film.


Our final idea, ‘DeathWalk’ isn’t a typical crime thriller or action. When choosing our thriller we tried to relate more to horror therefore chose the sub genre; Super Natural, this allowed us to be more creative. We were inspired many clips from thrillers. We used these clips ideas and later developed them to give them our own twist e.g./




This clip from arlington road inspired us for our final shots, with the use of quick cuts and bright lights.




This clip from 28 days later gave us he idea of isolation hence all of our shots showed someone walking through the forest alone.


Our main protagonist had her hair over her face to add tho the thrill, we were inspired to do this from the horror film the ring.




This clip from arlington road gave us the inspiration to put our title over clips instead of at the end on their own blank screen.

We stuck to the conventions in terms of the narrative; supernatural which is menacing our protagonist. Protagonist we have a main character however some could argue that we went against the norms by having a female protagonist. Films with female protagonists include :

In our opening of a thriller, the normal representation of females in thrillers is they are vulnerable and tend to be victims of the supernatural force; this was achieved by making the protagonist a female. Also, it isn’t very clear but the female is a teenager and we used this to represent the fact that statistics show suicide numbers among teenagers have risen.

The audience for my media product would mainly be teenagers who, although our opening is a thriller, are horror fans as our thriller deals with the supernatural. A typical person who fits our target audience is a 16 year old teenage female called Karen, who spends Friday nights at home with friends watching horror movies, she also loves going to the cinema with friends and boyfriend.

Marketing and promotion of films can be very expensive so i have chosen a couple cost effective ways to advertise:

• Television and radio Trailers
• Advance trailers, longer previews, or behind-the-scenes footage on rental videos and DVDs
• Product placement: paid active or passive insertion of film brand in drama or sitcom shows, or as passing mentions in dialogue
• Viral marketing: free distribution of trailers on movie-oriented websites and video user-generated-content websites, and rapid dissemination of links to this content by email and blogs.
• In the movie theater
• Trailers and behind-the-scenes shorts, shown prior to the main attraction

Our videos have already take one major step to promotion and this was via internet. Our opening thriller is available on , and even this already gives us a wide audience as the intenet is available to everyone and is relatively cheap so access to it is at a high level. The fact we are targetting teenagers allows facebook and youtube to be very useful as these are sites that are frequently visited by our target audience.

I learnt how to use new technology such as camera, internet fro blogging, soundtrack pro and Film Cut pro. with the camera, i learnt the use of different angles to help cause a thrilling effect eg. Low angle, Pan, Tilt. the main angles we used were a pan as she was walking and the effect of this was to establish she was alone in a deserted place. Also we used many low angle as she got close to hanging herself, the effect of this was the lower the angle the shorter her life was becoming, this shows her life coming to an end. We made sure we had all our shots well planned at the start with the use of a well made story board.

I learnt ahow to use final cut pro mainly about logging and capturing, sequencing and addin certain effects in relevant places. When editting i needed to make sure my cuts were perfect in order for my sequence to flow perfectly.

Below you see our sequence, its not clear but thats a low angle shot, with the use of a blurr and dark mast effect.

I also used soundtrack pro which happened to be very effective in our media thriller, we experimented with a range of sounds, including different genres and instruments. In most thriller films we noticed the use of high pitched and string instruments therefore we stuck to the convention.


From my prelim, I have learnt organisation and structure is key to success, making sure you plan before u start is vital otherwise you are clueless as to what type of shots to do. Also editing, getting the types of cuts are perfect as one mistake eg. The cuts too fast or cut don’t match could mess up the whole thing. However although we planned we didn’t plan thoroughly, could’ve ended with the girl waking up but we missed out that shot, also a shot of the girls’ feet while she was hanging. However, our final thriller was a big improvement from the prelim as when doing the prelim we didn't have as much experience in using the softwares and we were still in the training mode. In comparisson to the prelim we had better camera angles in the final. Also we mastered the sound in our thriller opening and the effect were used creatively given a eerie feeling to the thriller.

After all thrillers were complete, we went to the vue cinema to watch them. This was good in a way that we could see other peoples, they were all of a high standard but it was an effective way of judging and comparing other people work. Many people used similar storyt lines. Our Thriller was only repeated by 1 other groups which made it slightly unique. We got a very good response from our peers and they enjoyed it. Teachers said that we were very professional in how we conducted ourselves and the thriller.

.

Preliminary- Match Cut and 180 Degree Rule

When doing our preliminary, we were asked to focus on match cuts and not breaking the 180-degree rule. Our task was to create a short clip of a character opening a door, walking into a room and sitting opposite another character with some dialogue shared between them.
A match cut is the technical term for cutting from one shot to a completely different shot, which has the same objects that occupy the same place in the screen, hence the fact they match. The 180 degree rule just means the position u begin shooting, you need to stay within 180 degree of that axis other wise if you pass that, the camera mans right would be the audiences left and this would just confuse everything.
Firstly we made a list of shots we needed to do, our main match cut was character one walking through a door and the second shot of him coming out the other side. Our Preliminary was edited very well with just one or two mistakes but there is always space for improvement, however it was a great improvement from out 1st practise film the card game.

Making A Pitch and StoryBoard

Before making our pitch, we needed initial ideas and as my group are very imaginative this was, quite easy we had four or five initial ideas but we cut this down to three main ones.

Idea 1:
Secret files downloaded and past on to another person, shots of the computer with man typing, printing, putting file in envelope, making his journey to meet other man. Slow cuts, mainly medium close ups, extreme close ups. Slow music, with bass and drums to create and eerie atmosphere. Low light level, Dark room with some natural light.

Idea 2:
Switching cases in a busy public place, inspired by tom cruise film. 2 men, different dress code, one smart one casual, two similar suitcases, walk towards each other, accidently bump into each other and pick up each other suitcases so they switch. Quick cuts and mainly close ups with tracking and panning shots. Natural Light and up beat music to make audience anxious.

Idea 3:
Walk to death, a girl is dreaming of somebody who is covering his or her appearance walking through a forest, with many cuts to a tree and a rope being tied, much disorientated, the girl keeps tossing in her sleep. She the reaches the tree and the girl hands herself, when we see the appearance of the female, it is the girl who is dreaming.
A mixture of low angle and high angle shots with long shots and close ups, pan and tracking. Natural light with a mixture of slow and fast music.

After we pitched all three we were advised that all ideas could easily be achieve but idea 3 would be the most thrilling so we decided to go with it and began a storyboard. Unlike the typical story board with drawings, my group and I went out to our desired location with a camera and took many shots from different angles. We the logged captured and printed off our storyboard. We were now ready to film.

Second Filming Session

During the week, we were still searching for a better location than the place we filmed, as we still needed a tree for our main shot. A member of the group took pictures of the area they thought we should film and we all agreed that this was perfect and the tree she picked out looked thrilling and spooky enough to use.
The new location was now Finsbury Park. To show our dedication to the project, every member of the group met up during half term in order to film and complete early so we could have enough time to edit and perfect. When arrived and set up, we realised the use of two different locations may mean we have to get rid of many of the shots we took on the first day of filming as it would look amateur because the shots wouldn’t match, there would be no consistency and it would be obvious that the locations are different .
Nevertheless, we began filming immediately; we had our shots carefully planned. Although we were in very cold weather, we firmed the temperature and spent the whole day getting great shots. We got some good point of view shots, low angle, high angle, panning shots, tracking and while she was hanging we got some good tilts and medium close ups.
We finally completed the outside scenes now all was left was the bedroom scene of the main character sleeping, this was done the next day by two members of the group. They shot this scene the logged and captured and as we predicted many of the original shots had to be deleted.

First Day Filming

We decided to take full advantage of a three hour Friday lesson and begin filming; we had our shots well planned and were able to begin filming straight away. We also found the perfect location, a park just across the road from the college. It had a pathway that we could have used for the walk leading up to the hanging. We set up the tripod, and placed the camera on top. We agreed that we should record a minute of nothing for the natural sound that we could use later on. After the minute was up, we were full prepared to begin with our first shot that was a low angle shot of the main character walking towards the tree. Just as we began filming the park’s grounds keeper who explained we could not film there because it was private property stopped us. We were extremely gutted and the group’s morale completely dropped to a low level. We packed everything away and sat down at a bench for at least 10 minutes contemplating whether to give up and go home or think of a new idea.
We made our way back to college where we found our media teacher who helped us overcome this dilemma by telling us about other potential locations. However, we were still upset that we could not use our original location; nevertheless, we took our teachers advice and made out way to a new location, which was around the corner from our college. This seemed to have a more thrilling affect as there was a church, so we could have made it religion based. We set up the tripod and camera, and went straight into the filming as we already wasted an hour. We successfully got many shots of our character walking (close up’s, long shots and extreme long shots), kneeling towards the church and cross (tilts, high angle and low angle) and making he journey th4rough the gate towards a tree (medium close ups, tracking and panning).
We were proud that we made the most of our dreadful day, although we bumped into some problems, they were overcome, so we returned to college and uploaded our clips. That was it for that day, now the next lesson we were ready to film the walk to the tree and the hanging.

Opening Of Thriller Complete

My Group finally finished our Thriller Opening after some panic due to some members of the group thinking we would not be finished in time. However, we pulled through and worked together as a group to complete and perfect our clip. After uploading our separate clips to Final Cut pro, we began to analyse and find a starting point; luckily we had many clips so this gave us a variety to choose from. After a good two hours of hard work, all the necessary clips were put into sequence. This was our rough sequence, after watching it over and over; many clips were cut out due to the sequence being well over two minutes. However, we continued to cut and produce match cuts and we completed the full clip. Nevertheless, although we had a completed sequence, it had no sound and no effects. This is where we started analysing other thriller clips with similar story lines in order to try and follow the conventions. Considering our opening was mainly a dream and filmed in a forest we wanted to give it a dark gloomy effect; to achieve this we went to effects and after experimenting with many of the blurry effects, we agreed a 'blurry zoom' best suited our thriller, this gave it the gloomy effect, yet, we still needed to give it a dark effect so we put a dark grey mast over the clips in the sequence that were filmed outside. We had now achieved a dark gloomy look but there was still more to do. Many of the bed scenes contained a lot of movement and irritation due to the nightmare the person in the bed was having, we wanted the audience to feel as if they were having this nightmare, we wanted them to sympathise so, for each bed clip we modified the speed to below a hundred, this slowed everything down and made every movement in slow motion look more painful as if the dream was effecting the person mentally and physically, we believed this would add to the thrill.
Towards the end of the thriller, before the hanging, we decided to put in a little recap of four or five of the main clips leading up to the main clip, when editing we modified the speed to make it quick and the clip after slowed down the whole pace as the shots forthcoming would cause the audience to jump out of their seats and scream. After watching the more or less completed version of our opening repeatedly we felt it lacked the certain thrill factor at the end, so we were left with a slight dilemma. After the fast clips, then the pace was slowed down it cut directly to a girl hanging off a tree. However when watching it over and over it jus did not affect us in anyway, it seemed like a let down. We discussed this with three of the media teachers who all had different views, one teacher believed the affect needed will come with the sound, we agreed. However, after two teachers reviewed the work we came to a conclusion that after the pace is slowed down we should re start the fastness using twenty similar shots all at “0.3 seconds”. I decided to begin cutting the shots, it was looking better already and I was feeling the thrill. But still it lacked the finishing effect. So we decided to put a white mast over the shot just before the pace is sped up and the over all twenty shots put two different effects, one after another. The first effect would be very bright after the white mast was used, then a blur, then the bright light, then the blur and so on.
It worked perfectly; the opening of our thriller was now complete apart from one factor, sound. We uploaded our clip in sound clip pro to begin the sound, due to the environment we filmed in which was the woods, we decided to use some natural sound to give it the natural effect and make it realistic. Our thriller is very sequential and the thrill relies on the lead up which is quite slow so therefore we all came to an understanding that we shouldn’t use fast, up beat music but the complete opposite, and we also agree we didn’t want to do too much. Hence we used two main instruments for the whole thing “xylophone” and “bass”. We made it slow and suspenseful in order to keep the audience guessing as the music was also slow with the effect that it didn’t know which note to play next. When doing sound the main part we were focussing on was the end, this took most concentration and work as we had the correct shots to give the affect we needed but this all depended on the sound now. When reaching the twenty fast shots, we wanted fast drums, however when searching, none of the sounds on offer had what we needed. We left this and decided to come back to it at the end. At the beginning we put in a morning/ dawn effect with birds chirping while our actress walked through the gate. Towards the end we gave a weary wind blowing sound to lead us through with a swoosh sound the twenty fast shots, which in the end we decided to used thunder claps as they gave us the best affect and we finally had what we needed to give us that final thrill to leave the audience gasping off their seats. We had finally finished, we watched it repeatedly making final edits where necessary e.g. out of place sounds, bad cuts etc
After showing our teachers they were all proud and we all agreed it was finally over, we had finished, and all we need to do was export it using QuickTime. After exporting it we still continued watching it over and over and we had achieved our main aim…to thrill.

Three Scary Elements

After watching the shinning

Three Examples Of Scary Elements

Firstly, i feel sound plays a major part in causing a horror factor, as i feel the louder and more bassy the music is the more ear is created . The editing is a major element in causing thrill, as the use of quick cuts keeps the audience on edge with there hearts racing. The main scene which caused me to jump was where the main character was in the bathroom and what first seemed to b a beautiful young lady transformed into a beast. The shot where this was revealed was unexpected and the lead up was so calm. so the change of pace was effective in creating a thrill.