Thriller Evaluation

As we were instructed to create an opening to a thriller movie using specific devices and techniques from conventional thriller films, our group took influence from a few well known thriller films. We first created a digital story board and a ‘dry run’ of our initial ideas for our thriller ‘DeathWalk’ and views on how we want the finished product to look.
The final look of the main character looked similar to The Ring (2002):Thriller films usually contain certain factors that increase tension and suspense, some of these factors include; isolation, a hostile atmosphere and unpredictable events to ‘shake’ the audience and keep them interested. Some examples of thriller openings that contributed to our film idea include; 28 days later and Arlington road. In the opening to 28 days later the feeling of isolation and seclusion from reality is highlighted, for example when the main character finds that there is no one in the hospital, he then leaves and walks around London to find nobody. I wanted to produce the strong sense of isolation as our piece is a suicidal dream sequence.

However re-creating this environment was difficult when there is no sufficient financing. We decided that a big park would be the best location to try and re-create the impact of seclusion. Some devices used in the opening sequence to Arlington Road were useful techniques and ideas that we included in our work. This included a low ankle shot of abrupt walking and foot movements.
We found this technique abstract and unique and as we were portraying a dream sequence, it was vital that we took and abstract and ‘strange’ approach toward this project to fulfil this effect.We chose to use conventional ‘thriller’ film techniques so that we could merge and develop elements from successful thriller films to create a memorable and hostile atmosphere.
The sound in our final piece was also similar to many conventional thriller films, it consisted of a simple piano melody but was high pitched and minimalistic. The unpredictable events and tension was heightened by the music and added extra hostility and anxiety to the overall sequence. An example of a similar style but with string instruments is the opening sound track to the shining.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDR4OJUPG6A
The product shows the protagonist to be a young female and the piece represents typical subconscious teenage issues of trying to find identity, feelings of isolation and misunderstanding. We decided to use a female as the protagonist because many thriller films use females so that the audience can empathise with their fears and worries. Stereotypical characteristics of a female protagonist in a thriller films are - vulnerability, emotional instability, restlessness and anxiety. These characteristics are mainly used in thriller films, as they are stereotypical connotations of females thus making females be seen to deliver more sentiment to the audience and highlight the tense atmosphere that is being created.Some examples of female protagonists that influenced our work into proving that a female could perfectly portray the role created for our thriller opening are; What Lies Beneath (2000, Michelle Pfeiffer), The Others (2001, Nicole Kidman) and The ring (2002, Daveigh Chase).

We didn’t want our main female to represent a particular race or for the audience to be able to pinpoint a specific social class. When deciding how to represent our views on the protagonist not belonging to a specific social classification we conferred ideas on costume and make-up. Our final idea was a girl to be dressed in a dressing gown and have her face covered up by hair we took a few test shots to see if it would work and we all felt that it looked appropriate for the narrative.

The overall social group I feel that our work represents is teenagers focussing mainly on females and aiming to toward the target audience of working class to middle-class teenage girls.
Our media product is more likely to be a mid-budget Hollywood blockbuster as it follows the conventions of typical thriller movies and uses many elements of previous successful thriller movies. As our thriller includes many intertextual references to other films mentioned previously (28 days later, Arlington Road and The ring), these films were mainly mid-budget blockbusters resulting in our piece being of a similar financial criteria. However 28 days later and The Ring’s production costs would be higher than what the budget we would aim to have due to these film using busy and well known locations to film. By using these locations it creates more financial dilemma as roads may have to be blocked off and police officers to guard the area causing traffic. Possible distributors of the film may be Warner Brothers with the specification being Domestic Theatrical Distributor. Warner Brothers is a successfully established distributor and contributed with Domestic Theatrical distributor to distribute The Shining (1980).

The release of the film would either come out around a specific occasion (e.g. Halloween or Friday 13th) or a school holiday period where teenagers over the age of fifteen will be able to go and see it. The film will also only be showing after 21:00 in the cinema and special late night showings would also be available to increase the ‘thrill’ of going to view it at the cinema.
The main target audience for our media product would be teenage girls as the film idea as a whole covers many teenage issues of depression and isolation. We chose this as a target audience as it is our age group and therefore we decided to create something that would appeal to us. Raising teen suicide rates a turning to be an increasingly big issue amongst society so tackling such a sensitive subject for people around our age group was hard but yet in some senses mentally and emotionally fulfilling.

To attract my target audience I would use a range of promotional campaigns starting with traditional techniques and leading to modern ways of advertising and promoting the film ;(e.g. the internet). Starting with the traditional ways of marketing our film I would promote through:
• Paid trailers on television- Trailers showing on mainly terrestrial channels between popular programmes within an adolescent audience such as; Desperate Housewives (Channel 4), Skins (E4), Shameless (E4),Gossip Girl (ITV2). These programmes are aired after 21:00 in the evening and by using the advertisement breaks between parts of the programme it will capture the attention of the audience. A full trailer may also be debuted after midnight on a terrestrial channel (preferably Channel 4).
• Paid trailers on radio - Radio trailers will air after 20:00 so the audience will be aware of the genre. The voice over will be of a deep male voice making the trailer sound gritty and thrilling. A few sound effects could be used to represent the unpredictable events that occur in the film.
A recent television trailer; http://www.theunbornmovie.net/
Some modern ways to promote the film towards my selected audience:
• Viral Marketing – As young adults have evolved with technology and become accustom to using the internet as a source for entertainment the trailer will be available on film specialist websites and cinema websites. A few cinema websites that the plot and full trailer could be viewed at are; http://www.odeon.co.uk/ , http://www.showcasecinemas.co.uk/ and http://www.empirecinemas.co.uk/. Leaks from film websites may be put onto such sites as www.youtube.com are still a means of free advertising and can only have a positive outcome in the lead up to the release date.
Other ways in which the film could be promoted in the run up to the release date:
• Billboards – This would include advertisements on buses, in the tunnel of trains/subways and on the side of roads and motorways.
• Short flashes of a certain memorable detail from the full trailor in-between programmes on television.


Although we had been briefly introduced to the software used to construct our final piece, I felt that when using the software and trying to perfect a specific detail I had trouble witch tackling the intricacies. However after taking another hour to familiarise myself with the uses and features of the software (Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro) I felt much more confident within the group and was able to help in trying to portray our work and deliver the intentional effect and devices.
I found that once I had created a basic structure or a ‘rough cut’ of our two minute opening sequence it made it a lot easier to change, perfect and make use of the roll range of shots and clips that we had.

In hindsight I feel that as a group and personally, the finished product has exceeded my expectations and yearns to create a successful final piece. Sometimes when you are trying to think of creative ways in which you manipulate your shots when editing, you feel as though you have a ‘mental block’ which can be frustrating.
Although I feel that the end product was successful if I was to re-do or for future reference toward this type of work, I would definitely stick to a more vigorously planned and precise schedule prior to filming dates and start editing before we have got all the shots as it would have been easier to add and perfect once all the shots were done instead of starting once all the filming had been done.

Half Term Filming and Editing

13/02/09
Filming in Finsbury park
It was vital that even though we did not have a college on the Friday before half term, we would of have a 3hr lesson in which we could finish our filming. As we didn’t have that our group made a decision to film on that day anyway as we were already behind because most groups had finished filming. We filmed solidly for about three hours and got alot of footage, probably more than we needed but it means that we have a wider choice when coming to edit next week. I think the hanging scene will we quite effective, when watching it back I felt quite relieved that we’ve now nearly finished.
Myself and Yvonne (another group member) plan to do a the girl tossing in bed scene at her house on Sunday (15/02/09), all in all a productive day filming and a relief into knowing that we will finish on time.
15/02/09
Filming bed shots, Myself and another group member filmed the tossing and turning bed shots in her house we experimented with lots of different angles and shots and used things like boxes and pillows to make the perfect level and get a ‘head-on’ shot of the girl.
16/02/09
Some of our group members came into college on the first day of our holiday to log and capture our footage and make a start on editing. We have around 25minutes of footage which should be more than enough to work with. Myself and Yvonne devised a rough cut of the sequence around 5minutes long so that we will have a basic outline to work with when we return from half term.

First day of Filming

31/01/09
After going to a nearby park in lesson hours, our group was prepared to start filming. Just as we were starting off the parks warden told us that we would need special permission to film in the section of the park and we had to leave. We headed back to college and decided on asking our teacher what our next move was. Would we have to change our whole film idea?
Our group and teacher tried to think of other locations what were not too far away as we had to shoot in the lesson time if we didn’t want to be behind. We find a nearby church yard that had a wide road with a squeaky gate (conventional mise-en-scene for thriller. Once we got there we got a lot of footage that we may or may not use for our final piece but starting somewhere rather than waiting for another week to film was a good idea and the shots we got may come of use at a later date. Although the location wasn’t perfect we now have a stronger idea of what we definitely want and now we have a found a location to continue filming next week. I will go to Finsbury Park and find a tree that suitable for our narrative and filming next week should hopefully be a success.

The Pitch

23/01/09

Today’s lesson consisted of pitching our final film idea to a panel (three teachers) . We would either receive the ‘green light’ or some constructive criticism toward our idea. Our very first initial idea was to do a chase between two characters similarly to a clip viewed in a previously lesson from the television drama series Torchwood. When discussing further into what we want to achieve in this task we decided to continue sharing ideas on what our final thriller narrative should be.

We then produced two ideas:
The first one is called ‘Downloaded’ and the idea is similar to an exemplar thriller created by one of the media technicians. With this I idea our group would be able to use a range of thriller techniques such as; computer ‘downloading percentage’ shots, the use of match-cutting to heighten tension and create a steady pace of the narrative and a smooth exchange of briefcases similar to a scene in the film Collateral.
The other new idea that our group created was ‘Walk to Death’ which was a dream sequence, based around the process of a girl committing suicide with a rope and a tree. Our ideas were to film the girl from behind without showing her face or any identifiable features using only point of view shots for the audience to empathise with her. We then wanted to end the sequence by having another character walk into the shot just as the girl is about to hang herself, making the final long shot into an over the shoulder shot.

We were in between the two ideas of ‘The Chase’ and ‘Walk to Death’, we asked our teachers for advice and the majority vote was toward the Walk to Death idea. Although we were told that it sounds too much like horror, we were given some guidance on how to make it less gory and more thrilling.

Once pitching both ideas ‘Walk to Death’ go the green light and we received support from our class peers on the idea as well. It reliving to know that we now have a final idea for out thriller film and we plan to do a digital story board with a camera next lesson so filming is not rushed and the speicifc shots we need are noted down.

Final Preliminary Film Pt 2

Final prelim Pt 2

20/01/09

In today’s lesson we finished editing our final preliminary exercise. The finished product in comparison to our previous prelim exercise clearly shows our expanding expertise within camera work and continuity.

After finishing these two tasks it is apparent that we have taken on board the advice and techniques out teachers have told us. I have learnt how the explore the 180 ̊ rule and use it to an advantage, by using this techniques it keeps consistency and gives the finished product a ‘neater’ overall without having to use effects and ‘mirror’ scenes to make them all in one direction. Another useful technique that takes a lot of time and effort to perfectly complete is match-cutting. However this technique is especially useful when in the editing process as it gives you a range of structure and frame sizes to work with and can also help with continuity and focus on a specific object, action or person.

This task showed typical elements of a thriller film e.g. smug characters, use of props such as; a brief case and remote, pulsating music and an unpredictable event. The sequence ended with the ‘less-confident’ character pressing a button on the remote and laughing. As the other character had just left the room with the briefcase the link between the two props was made clear through editing.

Every member of our group showed true skill in certain technical aspects when creating this product, we each have valuable qualities and contribution and the final thriller should hopefully be a successful task.

Final Preliminary Film

16/01/09
Final Preliminary Film

Using the techniques and learning from the errors made in the last Preliminary task our group were asked to devise another thriller scene. We were aware of the errors we had made last time (e.g. tripod leg exposed in final cut of piece, no sound due to deadline) and were determined to finish and create a piece of substantial quality.

Our first few shots were similar to our previous prelim task so we had an idea of the structure and framing that the shot should be. The continuity of the beginning shots I feel were effective and the progression we had made from the previous task to this one was significant.

It was clear that our group as a whole had exceeded our creativity and thought processes as we all had unique and quirky ideas to contribute when filming. We used new techniques such as turning the lights off on one side of the room when the character was walking into the room to use the shadow as a means of continuity.

We also explored different angles and shot sizes to build up tension and prolong the thrilling event, some of the angles we used were; high angle, eye-level angle, extreme close ups, over the shoulder shots and two shots.

By the end of this lesson we had around 25 shots to be cut down into sequence duration of a minute so editing this will be difficult but as we have all learnt from the last prelim it shouldn’t be too bad as we have a stronger idea of what we want our work to depict.

Editing Practise Pt.2 - Card Game

13/01/09

Following last lessons filming, we uploaded our shots onto final cut pro and logged and captured suitable shots for making our short piece. Within our group there was difficulty in deciding how the scene should be set, the opening shots and how it will smoothly progress and climax into a tense atmosphere.

We decided to set the scene by using the shuffling cards clip so the audience are well aware from the beginning that the sequence is based around a gruelling card game. We then did a split scene of a male walking down a corridor confidently, pausing, adjusting his gun and then waking into the room. This was edited in a deliberate way to that the narrative was easy to interpret.

To highlight the wariness that each character shared for each other we included a lot of close-ups and built the tension by referring back to the shot of the cards being dealt.

The sequence then ends with one of the characters showing his gun in a subtle but yet threatening way under the table and the other characters facial expression is highlighted with an extreme close-up of his face.

I felt editing this task to be difficult and planning would have definitely helped during the first stages of this task. I also felt that I need to find some creativity from within so that I will be able to contribute and quickly think of good ideas when our group confer in the future about our final thriller ideas.

Editing Practise Pt.1 - Card Game

09/01/09

To get some first handed experience with filming our own shots we were asked to create a ‘thrilling’ card game using the techniques that we have learnt when working with the camera. Once we had been introduced to the ins and outs of the camera and tripod facilities we then began to plan our storyboard needing a minimum of twelve shots.

After 30 minutes most of the other groups had begun filming and we had only drawn and described about four shots we collaboratively decided that to get the work done we would improvise. We tried to focus mainly on Mid-Shots or Mid-Pans and also Close-ups of the characters face so that expressions and possible thoughts were clearly visible.

We also paid conscious detail so small actions that would be over looked in ‘everyday’ life to heighten tension and create an anxious atmosphere. Some of these small details/action include; opening a door – specific detail on the walk towards it and pausing before the character walks in, looking at cards in hand – sly movement represent the competition between characters.

I found this task beneficial but also hard as you begin to appreciate the hard work, timing and meticulousness that goes into filming and film preparation.

Introduction to Sound Software

06/01/09

In today’s lesson we were given a tutorial on sound using software from the James Bond movie Casino Royale. Using different backdrops and sequences from the film we were able to experiment with layering sound effects and levels of volume. For example, in one tutorial of layering sound, the backdrop was of the casino, some of the sound options were; the ambience of a bar (e.g. distant chatter, glasses clinking), the sound of poker chips being counted and tense music. With all of these effects I was able to try and re-construct the sound from the actual sequence. I found this difficult because the volume levels of sound were hard to get to a precise level so that it would sound realistic.
The next task was to place the different layers of sound to one minute sequence from the film. This was an action sequence so it had to include racing music, vocal effects and micro-effects such as running, footsteps, engine sounds etc. With this I was introduced to audio editing and the layout of the software is similar to Sound Pro which is the software that our class is to use when editing our thriller films.
Overall I found this task quite fun but also quite frustrating as it can take quite a long time to get all the effects and volumes of the sound perfect. This practise lesson on the software was very helpful as I have learnt a lot about how important sound is and that every minute sound is just as important as an instrumental over the sequence.

Lesson 5/12 - The Shining

05/12/08

The Shining

As an introductory lesson into the elements of thriller films we were shown the film adaptation of the Stanley Kubrick novel The Shining. There was a variety of elements that created suspense and tension throughout the film. Many scenes in the film felt like your mind was tricking you and making you feel confused when in fact it was the skilled techniques in which the creators had portrayed these scenes. For example there is a scene where Jack has gone into ‘Room 237’ he finds a young beautiful slender woman bathing nakedly, she then gets out and walks towards Jack. Jack then begins to kiss her passionately but is suddenly sickened is she starts to deteriorate into and old woman, he hair and skin start to fall off and is both scary for the audience and the character of Jack in the film. This is a prime example of the skilled techniques used to illustrate Jack’s insanity but is very much thrilling and scary for the audience to watch.