Risk assessment for our project

Our group completed a risk assessment form for the filming of our thriller project. By filling this form in our filming will be more organised and many potential hazards will be reduced, ensuring all group members are safe whilst filming.

Possible locations for filming

We decided that we wanted a farm, or a barn as our location for our thriller. Here are some possible locations that could be used for our thriller. 

Analysis of project

This is our first draft of our thriller intro project, 'Missing'. After showing different types of audiences, from professionals to students we have constructed a list of improvements and changes that will be made to the project.

• There is a space of nothing (black screen), up to 9 seconds in that needs cutting.
• The 'bearded man productions' sequence needs cutting shorter after the animation has taken place,
• All 3 newspaper articles have been filmed in the same way (a pan from left to right), many of the viewers agreed that it would be better if we changed the shot type throughout these clips.
• Further content needs to be included, for example the suspect circling locations on a map, this would help make the audience think more, and add enigma 
• More job titles (credits) need to be added.

Questionnaire

Here is a questionnaire our group have written, to gain a further understanding of what people think of thrillers and as a result, what aspects of thrillers to include in our own project. This questionnaire will be given to a selection of random people and the same questions will be used in a selection of video interviews.

Intro Logo

This is a logo that our group created. The logo will appear at the start of our short thriller film.

Thriller opening experiment - Delicatessen

We did further experiments intro Thriller openings after studying the opening to the film "Delicatessen"
 ( below )




We set up various objects, and artificial lighting to create a similar 'look' to that seen in the opening to Delicatessen. We slowly rotated the table, and used focus on the camera to record the titles, embedded within the objects.

Shot List

Our Thriller opening will consist of various types of shots, all used in different situations to help create enigma and making the audience feel uneasy. Here is a list of the different types of camera shots we plan to use;

• Medium shot - This shot will be used the most throughout the opening, mainly when the character comes into view.
• Close ups - This shot will be used in are opening many times because it will emphasis what is going on but confuse the audience because they will be guessing on who the character is.
• POV - This will be used in are opening from the point of view of the characters eyes.
• Long shot - This will be used to emphasis the surroundings to the audience throughout the scene.
• Over the Shoulder - This will be to show the character is focused on the various pictures that will be seen throughout the opening. 
• Zoom - This will be used at the start of are opening, the camera will slowly zoom onto the car, this will show it is important to the scene.

Thriller Project Experiment - Fonts

Our group experimented with various fonts which could be used in our final project, e.g. for titles. The following fonts are all availbile from http://www.dafont.com/. 

Shot Ordering Exercise

This was an exercise we did in groups, we had to order shots from a random film and make sure they all worked together. This was good in helping us see the narrative of the film opening and we had to put ourselves in the mind set of the director using the pictures we had to recreate his film. By arranging the shots in a chronological order, we have a greater understanding of shot progression, which we can use in our own thriller project.

Soundtrack for Thriller Opening

We created our soundtrack for our thriller on garage band. Firstly, we recorded sounds using the laptops microphone, such as 'tapping' and 'scraping' sounds, common to thriller movies. We then imported these sound files into garage band where we could modify them and edit them. We did things such as applying filters, such as increasing the gain. 

The advantage of editing the sounds in garageband is that we could add pre recorded sounds to aid our soundtrack. For example, we added a drum beat to create rhythm within the soundtrack ( labelled 'Effected Drum Kit 02' above ), this combined with our recorded sounds and underlying bass tracks resulted in our final soundtrack.

The volume levels of each track could be edited to suit our soundtrack. For example we could give certain sounds a gradual increase, to add tension and create enigma.

Practice Thriller Opening

This is our groups thriller intro. We created the soundtrack by pre-recording sounds and enhancing them in garage band, as well as adding a pre-recorded drum beat to add a rhythm to the opening. After our extensive analysis of thriller opening scenes, we have tried to incorporate the various techniques that they have used. Techniques such as the various camera angles and obscure objects and different shot sizes. By creating a rough, practice intro we also had a good opportunity to experiment with different editing techniques, ones which we may be able to use in our final piece. For example, in this project we practiced the use of overlaying two videos, to create the burning, glowing effect.