Thriller Evaluation

When our group were still coming up with initial ideas, we watched a few thriller films so that we could familiarise ourselves with the conventions of thriller movie openings. Two films that stood out most to us were “28 Days Later” and “Arlington Road” and elements from both films inspired us with our final idea for our thriller.
In “28 Days Later” the character is isolated in a hospital and is trying to work out where everyone has gone and why is he the only one left.

- Shot showing desolation from “28 days Later”

This element is similar to our thriller, as the character is in an isolated forest and the audience are unaware of why and how she ended up there.

In “Arlington Road”, the character is walking down an empty street, and effects are used to make the screen hazy to represent that the character feels like passing out and we, the audience, can clearly see this. The film also had a lot of great medium and extreme close up shots of the character. We used these in the bedroom scene when the character was tossing and turning and we think that the close ups of the character’s face looking distressed and confused are effective.


- Shots from that inspired us from “Arlington Road”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03668oTEoIQ

Here are a few intresting shots from the film that stood out; you'll notice the long hair in front of the woman's face is identical to the character in our film. This worked well to represent her deathly demeanour.

Because of this factor, our film was not a conventional thriller but more so a supernatural thriller as it is more horror than thriller. We wanted to break from clichés that we had assumed other groups would do, for example a boy in a hoodie following a girl down the road and ending it with him finally catching up with her. We tried to do something somewhat more abstract to make the audience wonder why she was dreaming of her own death, what did this mean, did it already happen because she didn’t wake up at the end etc.
The fact that there was only one character adds to the ambiguity of the history of the character and the reasons behind the dream which is a great factor as it allows the audience to creatively conjure their own reasons as to why she is dreaming her own death.

We then had to create a storyboard of how we wanted each shot to look like so that when it came to filming we didn't waste any time trying to figure what to film and what shots to use. We were supposed to create quick sketches of each shot but as nobody wanted to draw them, we decided that taking digital pictures of each shot would be beneficial for everyone and also clearer and precise to understand at a later date.

We then had to find a location that wasn't too far a distance but was still suitable for our product and decided that we needed to find a large park surrounded in trees low enough to tie the rope around. We ended up choosing Finsbury Park as our location and decided to film there on the 13th Feb and one of the group members went there to first of all find a suitable tree so that we didn't spend hours looking for one.

Here are some of the pictures:

Despite this tree being isolate from the other trees it doesn't have any other useful factor. It doesn't look menacing it needs to have more branches and be thicker.

This tree looked really good, however it was too close to a path and if people were walking by, they could interruot filming as well.

The branches on this tree are really good but as you can clearly see, a river is in the shot. However we could have shot it with the river in the scene but this may have moved focus if say for example a duck or boat went by

This tree was ideal as because it had thick branches, when you stood underneath it, it seemed very dark and gloomy was a great factor. It also wasn't near a path or any other distractions and the branch was strong enough for the character to hang herself from which was also useful. So below is the actual tree that we used.

Below is a close up of where the character is going to hang herself from

The filming process was quite difficult at times due to members of the group being ill and the unexpected weather that we experienced during the week commencing the 3/02/09 we were a week behind filming. However, we all decided to get together and film on a day that we didn't have college so that we would still be on task and avoid handing in our film late; also because we hadn't used Soundtrack Pro, we wanted to leave as much time as possible.

Here are a few shots of us during the actual filming process that we had taken

The character in the film is a clearly a teenage girl who, for some reason unknown, is disturbingly dreaming of her own death which anyone of any age, class or gender can watch, and even though they wouldn’t fully understand why it is happening, they can easily follow the story. The fact that she is a teenage girl, of an ethnic minority, this further breaks from the clichés of having a lead white male/female starring and her age creates sympathy because she must be from a disturbed childhood, youth or family background to graphically dream of killing herself.


Our thriller would be a small independent UK release as it isn’t a glossy, clichéd Hollywood blockbuster; it’s more of a gritty, dark film. Because the idea of dreaming of your own death is quite sinister could be critically acclaimed by critics as it’s unusual for the lead character not to live a “happy ever after” as it is favoured in Hollywood movies. Being an independent UK film, gives more power and freedom to the director, editor, screenplay writers and actors to create a film exactly how they pictured it without fear or conforming to conventional Hollywood endings. The motive of the film is not to solely entertain, but to give the audience a rare insight into the dream of a stranger which couldn’t be possible in reality; this escape is significant to all audiences as this is the reason why people watch films, or read books because at that moment they are in the world that somebody else has created for them.

A typical person to fit the target audience for the thriller is Lily who is 20 years old and is studying Contextual Studies at University and one of her favourite past times is watching independent art films with up not necessarily mainstream actors or directors but with an interesting and sometimes controversial plot. Couple of common independent films that may be intereseted in showing "Death Walk" would be The Rich Mix in Bethnal Green or The Curzon in Soho.

The marketing process of the film I think would be done best by TV adverts, Internet pop ups and advertisements in newspapers. Internet pop ups will be effective as they are a quick and easy way to drill the name and release date of the film into people’s heads and most people are now used to the Internet and use it frequently; a small clip could also be shown on the pop-up as a taster of the real thing.

The company best suited to distribute the film would be as they are well-known to release British films and could promote it on and as well. The best times to advertise it would be during one of their highest rated programs, for example, during to appeal to young people or during a documentary to appeal to an older audience.

A familiar British actress should play the lead role, for example Larissa Wilson (who played Jal Fazer in Skins series 1-2), would be ideal as she is familiar in the public eye and most people are wondering what happened to the original cast members from the first and second series.

We are familiar to the success of Dev Patel (who played Anwar Kharral in Skins series 1-2) in Slumdog Millionaire and fans of Skins are waiting to see where the rest are as well.

Also, because Skins was shown on and , advertising “Death Walk” with Larissa Wilson on the same channels would instantly capture a loyal audience.

During this process of constructing this product I recorded our lessons in an online weekly blog and included what worked and what didn't and what I had learnt and the goal for the next lesson. I had to learn how to use Soundtrack Pro and Film Cut Pro which I had previously used. The first time that I had to use Film Cut Pro was when we had to make our preliminary task and it took a while to familiarise ourselves with the new program and like I stated in my blog (Lesson 21/01/09) because we spent so much time trying to perfect our preliminary task, we didn't have enough time to use Soundtrack Pro. Because of this, when it came to doing the real Thriller project, I wasn't confident in using Soundtrack Pro; this meant that I had to spend a bit of my spare time getting to grips with how the program worked.

Obviously, as our product is a thriller, we wanted to create eerie, suspenseful soundtrack which would cause tension. I initially used a soft piano combined with two different types of violins to create a high pitched sound and then added a synthesizer and a drone.

Looking back at my preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt several useful skills which I believe that I effectively applied to my full final product. Firstly, the key factor in making the full product work was planning, if we didn't make our storyboard and choose our location beforehand then after the unexpected weather and illness of group members, the task would have been more stressful than it needed to be.

Also, because we had planned what we had planned what we were doing, we didn't waste time improvising with shots and angles and the filming process didn't take long at all. I've also learnt that if you want to make things look continous by drawing the audience's attention to something you need to film shots at different angles to do this successfully. I learnt a lot when it came to making the soundtrack, as I mentioned before I wasn't familiar with using Soundtrack Pro so I needed to experiment with the different sounds that the program had to offer and have learnt that different film genres require different genres of music to successfuly create their desired effect.

For example an action film may have sirens, and fast-paced upbeat percussions and electric guitairs whereas a romantic drama may have slow, acoustic piano playing of somesort.

Overall I believe that the dynamic of the group, the planning, commitment and skills that we had learnt combined together made the product as succesful as it was. Watching all the thrillers of the other groups at the Vue Cinema in Angel was also a great experience as I believe that we all learnt new ideas from watching everyones and if we had the opportunity to do the task again, I'd be excited to try out new ideas that inspired me from groups.

Lesson - 30/1/09

In today's lesson, there were several problems that our group were faced with.
Firstly we weren't allowed to film in the park that we had decided to film in. We had already started and had set up the camera were just about to film when someone came over and said that we needed a permit to film in the park, and to get this permit we needed to write to the council and we wouldn't get a reply for at least 10 days.

We went back to college and found one of our teachers and explained the situation to her and she was just as confused as we were. She told us that there was another park nearby with a church as well that we should be able to use, however at this time everyone wasn't in the most enthusiastic mood so we were contemplating whether or not to continue filming.

After about 20 minutes of sulking, we decided that there was no harm in seeing the park, so we set off and this new park was actually even better than the other one that we had which definitely lifted our spirits. The only downside was that it was very cold at this time and we had to figure out how to start off, because as the location had changed we need to decide what direction to start from and little things like that. The new park was better because it was a bit more private as it wasn’t on a road surrounded by house and was bigger as well.

We got set up and began filming and I think we were all quite pleased with how it went, the change of locations set us back in regard to the time so we didn’t get to do everything that we had planned which was really disappointing. Overall the shots we took, I think, worked really well which was good.

Lesson - 27/1/09 (Storyboard)

In today's lesson, me and my group went to a nearby park to take pictures for our storyboard. As none of us are particularly good at drawing either, taking pictures with the digital camera would also portray the shots as clear as possible. As this was our shorter lesson and it was only our storyboard, all we needed was rough yet accurate enough shots in a location that was suitable. One of the other pupils in the class, informed us that there was a nearby park we could use, so we got a digital camera and began.

We took shots from different angles and distances which were relevant to the scene, however we all felt as a group that there wasn't enough shots taken. When we went back to the classroom, we caught a glimpse of another group filming with their props and this dis-heartened me and another member of the group, as we both felt that maybe our storyline needed changing. We talked it over with one of the technicians and she encouraged us not to dwell on other groups' work because that's where we will go wrong. She continued on to say that our storyline was too complicated and it needn't be and advised us to keep an eerie feel to the scene by using crows in the background. This caused us to change our storyline once more as we have decided to scrap having a girl dreaming, and instead just focus on her walking while at the same time switch to the titles. We are also going to include voices of people tormenting her with verbal abuse, which will represent as to why she is killing herself.

The character is still going to wear a white gown and white plimsolls and her hair will still be down and covering her face.

Our teacher said we are a bit behind and if we don't begin filming by Friday then we will really be far behind. Hopefully, if everything goes to plan, we will be filming tomorrow afternoon.

Lesson 23/1/09 (The Pitch)

In today's lesson, we had to pitch our thriller idea to our teacher and the two of the other media technicians. We had previously come up with the idea of having a chase between two characters like in a clip that we saw earlier on in the year from the drama series Torchwood.
However when we got to the classroom to prepare, a member of te group came up with two other good ideas.

One was called "Walk to Death" which was about a girl who was walking towards a tree with a rope that was hanging from it. We planned to shoot the scene from different angles yet without showing her face. The girl was then going to tie the rope round her neck and then we would film over the shoulder of another person who is just watching her. The scene ends without knowing whether or not the other person will stop the girl from killing herself.

The other idea was called simply “Downloaded” and it was similar to a clip that we were shown earlier by one of the technicians . It was simple as it involved someone downloading files onto a computer with a lot of close-ups of their face and then a scene where the same character does a very slick switch with brief cases with another person.

We were torn between the “Chase” and “Walk to Death” so we asked our teacher what he thought and he liked the “Chase” because he said it would be good to do a fast-paced chase scene, however we didn’t have the facilities to make this work successfully. And also, we couldn’t have just a scene with a chase, as having a storyline to why there was a chase going, on took too much time- of which we didn’t have. We got another opinion from a technician who said that the “Walk to Death” was a better choice yet it sounded similar to a horror, so he helped us move it along a bit and develop it so that it wasn’t so gory. We changed the storyline to a girl tossing and turning in her sleep then we would fade into her dream and then see her walking towards the rope, yet not seeing her face, and then having her feet dangling to represent what happened. We would then show her face to show it is the girl dreaming of killing herself.
She is going to wear a long, white dressing gown and her hair is going to be out and messy, obviously showing that she doesn't care about her appearence in this moment in time; she is solely focusing on what she came to do.

When delivering the pitch, we were all happy with the storyline but we still haven’t found a location for us to film the tree scene in. However when it comes to sound, lighting and editing we were all quite confident that the scene will be a success. We are not going to start filming on Tuesday, but instead on the Friday, when our next lesson takes place, on Tuesday's lesson we will be planning each shot perfectly.

Lesson - 21/1/09

In today's lesson, my group finished our preliminary film and we all agreed that our second practice was much more successful than the first one. We included all the shots that were asked for in the brief that we were given.

I have learnt several things between my first and second practice films. One is to keep to the 180 degree rule so that the scene looks realistic and consistant. Another thing is to use a match cut - this is especially useful when trying to draw the audience's attention to a particular object. I also learnt that if you plan each shot carefully your less likely to go wrong and you will stick to the deadline that you were given. However, I'm aware that sometimes due to uncontrollable factors, like the weather, filiming could also be delayed so therefore back-up altenatives need to bee considered.

We followed the advice of one of our teachers who said that when we are filming a shot, for example when one of the characters walk in and switch off the light, because we wanted a close-up, we had to film him walking in and doing the same process twice. One was from far and one was up close. This made everything look continous.

One member of my group went back to the editing room at lunch time to put the shots together and done a really good job on it. We were all surprised by how well he had edited it and this gave us time to add sound to the film. There were so many to choose from and because we didn't realise this, we ended up using one beat throughout, but i think it gave the film a monotomous feel to it.

As our film is only a few minutes long, we obviously couldnt resemble a full-length film identically. However, we used several aspects to create tension in the film. We had a character looking confident and quite smug and the other laid-back and reserved. The first character who was cocky, thought he was getting the better end of the deal but was fatally wrong. In the meantime, the other character who was quiet actually ended up having the last laugh. I liked the twist at the end as, hopefully, no one saw it coming and if you look at the scene again, you will notice the remote is always on the table.

During filiming there was a bit more dialogue but during editing, it was evident that the more that dialogue was used the less the tension was on sceen - less dialogue = more tension.

Overall I was happy about the film and it's made the whole group confident in making our thriller.

Lesson -16/1/09 (filming preliminary film)

In today's lesson we were filming our preliminary and we used the plan that we had made from the last lesson and got started straight away. Our first few shots were similar to our first 1st practice film, as it had a character walkng down a corridor and opening a door. However, this time it was done so much better as we had remembered our previous mistakes of not planning and not having enough continuity.
We counted in 5 before saying action and cut to give enough time during editing to link the shots together. We had a lot of new ideas as wel, like turning the light off when one of the characters walked in. It took us so long because we had to film the same shot but at different angles (ECU, MCU), which became tedious but it was necessary to ur film.
However as we had so many new ideas, we took longer than the other groups to film. We did finish though and were all happy with the result; we then continued to the editing room.

I didn't realise how many shots we had and putting them together is going to take a while, but I'd prefer having to much of a choice to choose from than not enough. We finished filimin near the end of the lesson so we didn't have enough time to edit, so we will continue with it next lesson.

Editing Practice Pt.2

Our teacher wasn't in for today's lesson so we had another media teacher with us today. As he isn't our regular teacher, the lesson got off to a bit of a slow start because he wasn't aware of what hard drives we had saved our film clips to. However, after a while we were settled into our groups and loaded up the clips on the computer.
We weren't sure of which scene to start with as their was a clip where someone's hands was shuffling cards and dealing out then stopped or there was a clip where someone shift-looking was walking down a corridor and about to walk in to where the game was being held. We decided on the hands shuffling the cards as this was a good way to open the scene, when then cut to the person walking down the corridor and we had close-ups of him pausing before he entered and a one of him where we can see a gun being hidden in his trousers. The scene then cuts to the rest of the card players being dealt cards. There are then a lot of close-ups of the two male characters and their facial expressions; we tried to show that their was mistrust amongst them. The scene ended when the person with the gun shows the other male character his gun and cuts on his shocked response.
It was very hard to do because we had to get our timing perfect, whereas with the practice clip we had in the other lesson, it was filmed with extra time between when the director said cut and the end and the beginning so it was easier to link the shots together. In our scene, some of the shots were cut very sharp and there isnt alot of continuity near the end; this was because we were running out of time and we thought it would be better to finish editing than leave it half finished.

When it comes to the real thriller scene I've learnt to carefully plan every scene and know why each camera angle is being used and what effect we are trying to create. Using time carefully because we thought we had alot of time during this practice and in the end everything was rushed and even though I was satisfied with the scene it could have been much better. Also because our shots weren't perfect and weren't planned it was hard to cut and put them together so this took up alot of our time which meant that we didn't get to put in music over the scene like the other groups did.

Editing Practice Pt.1

In today's lesson one of the technicians showed us how to use the editing programme. There was an example of a dozen shots together that we used to practice cutting and attaching shots together to make them one scene. I thought at first this would be easy and wouldn't take long, especially as we were given more than enough shots to make a good scene with. However, it was a bit difficult to make some of the shots link continuously together; we had to try and cut a some shots a few times to keep the continuity. In the end we were satisfied that we could all use the software successfully.

In the last part of the lesson, we uploaded our shots from the card game we filmed last lesson. We were then shown how to make cuts of our film; this wasn't hard at all and only took about 10 minutes at most. We have a lot of medium close-ups combined with some close-up shots and putting them together will be a good way to create tension - next week we will try this.

Overall, the lesson was useful and beneficial to the group; we will hopefully be successful when it comes to putting the shots we filmed together.

Video Camera Induction Lesson

In today's lesson we were put into groups for our thriller coursework and I was pleased with who I was working with; everyone is euthusiastic and well all get on well with each other so hopefully we'll produce some really good work.

Also today, one of the technicans gave us a clear, step-by-step presentation of how to use the video cameras. They were very precise and made the whole process very easy to understand. We all took in in turns to put the camera in the battery, put the tape in and use the tripod. We were also given basic do's and don'ts to follow, for example, don't get the camera wet etc.

We were then given a brief to film a card game and create tension through different camera shots, editing, mise en scene etc. We had about an hour and a half to do it and we needed a minimum of 12 shots. We first of all made a storyboard to show each shot and explain briefly why we were doing it and what mood we were trying to create.

However, we were planning for about 20-25 minutes and we were still only up to 4 shots which was very frustrating., especially as the other groups had begun filming. As the time was running out, we just decided to start filming and improvise the scene, playing close detail to medium close-ups of people's faces to show the mistrust amomgst the players.

Overall the lesson was very productive as I learnt the basics of camera work and I also learnt that there is a lot more work that goes into filming than just pressing record.
Next lesson, we will begin editing what we recorded and hopefully it will be a success as well as a learning curve.

The Shining

While watching the film The Shining there were various elements used to create suspense and tension. One of these scenes was when the main male character was in one of the hotel rooms and he found a naked woman in the bath. He started to kiss her but then as he looked into the mirror he abruptly stopped as he noticed that her skin was partially wasted away and she looked like an scary, ugly old woman. This made me jump because similiar to the man's knowledge we the viewer also saw her as a beautiful young woman so when it turned out that she wasn't, it was a very intresting scene to watch.