Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your final task?

• The main error we encountered in our preliminary task was the change in the direction of travel, the 180 degree rule. This created an unsteadiness in the task and ruined the flow. 
• I learnt to ensure continuity within the film, that a lot of things needed to remain consistent, such as the shot types and the environment. One of our difficulties was as a result of shooting outdoors, the weather and lighting became a changing factor whilst filming, so we had to make sure we filmed carefully, and that this wasn't noticeable during the final edit. 
• I feel I have also learnt a lot about editing. During our preliminary task, I encountered difficulties with Final Cut, which could be seen in the task, such as un-smooth transitions. Also, I learnt that filming was very important. For example, the use of a tri-pod in our final task ensured that shots were not shaky and the panning shots were of a consistent speed. Shot type was also very important when working within the thriller genre. For example, Alfred Hitchcock used particular shot types to create enigma and suspense. We made use of this, for example in our final task the character's face is not seen once, leaving the audience un-settled and asking questions.
• We analysed our preliminary task and pin-pointed the mistakes we made. When working our final project we made use of detailed story boarding and planning to ensure we didn't repeat these mistakes.

Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation Questions 4 and 5

Evaluation Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

A film needs to be distributed in order for it to reach the market and become available to watch by a large audience. Though distribution can take place through various different methods, and the right method can be decided through research.

Areas that they will need to research are:

• Target Audience - It is important to know the target audience of the film so that distribution strategies can be adjusted to suit the audience. For example, it would be ineffective to advertise a child's cartoon film, on a history channel advertisement break.

• Advertising - How will they gain awareness of their film. Where will the media product be shown, and where will be most effective.

• Budgeting - The production company will need to asses which method is the best value for money, and that the awareness gained will return revenue, to cover the cost of the original distribution.

• Screening - They will need to arrange for cinemas to show their film, trying to ensure the cinemas they by showing the film they will generate more profit.

For our product

As a result of financial constraints, we won't be able to distribute our product in the same way in which Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount and Warner Bro's do. Though, as a result of our target audience (18-30) and mixed gender, social networking sites are a cheap, and effective method of distribution.

Facebook, the world's biggest social networking site is great for sharing media content.

Here is sharing in it's simplest form, you can copy the URL of your media content, and post it as your Facebook status update, allowing friends and others to see it. This can then be liked and shared, and quickly gain awareness.

If budget is considering, we could use Facebook further, and pay to advertise our media content.

Youtube is also great for awareness, as popular and similar video's are often reccomended to other viewers.

Evaluation Question 2

Props

This is the initial shot, after the production logo. The opening shot has many props, such as the tractor to the right of the frame, and the farm machinery on the left.The second most noticeable prop is the weapon held in the characters hand. A weapon of some sort is not only common to the thriller genre, but links the opening scene to the farming and agricultural context in which it is set.

Costume

Items such as wellies and a long green coat further connote the agricultural theme.

Casting

As there is only one actual person in the film, that is all the casting there is. All that the audience can see is that it is a male, possibly anywhere from 17-24 years of age. The reason for such a wide range of possible age is that the face is not shown. This adds to the enigma. Being this age, it will attract the attention of viewers who are of the same age. To ensure that the video appears to as wide an audience as possible, extra characters have been added. On the newspaper clipping, women of varying ages are shown. Hopefully this will try to include a wider target audience.

Scenery 

The scenery is clearly in the countryside, and the barn, containing farm machinery and vehicles connotes the farming theme.

The weather also creates a theme, as it was raining during filming, there are many puddles on the ground, and the lighting is poor, this not only connotes the farming theme, but adds to the idea of preconceptions of England.

Evaluation Question 1

Final draft of thriller project

How we edited our thriller project

 We edited our project using Final Cut Pro. This is where we put together all the titles, logos, video clips and sounds together that we had created for our thriller intro. Firstly we imported all the files by clicking 'file' > 'import' > 'files'. By doing this all the files become available in Final Cut, and ready to drag onto the timeline.

 After roughly arranging all the clips in chronological order I began to edit all the clips. Most clips could easily be cut to the desired length by dragging one side of the clip in. For some clips we had to make them longer, by changing the speed.

To do this you right click on the selected clip then select 'change' speed. Settings then appear that canbe modified to change the clip to your desired speed.

The the titles used in our thriller opening had a 'shimmering' effect. This was also edited in final cut.

Firstly I created text and typed in the appropriate job titles. Then effects were added, we chose the 'bad film' effect to give the shimmering effect that fits in well within the thriller genre.

The template effect could also be edited, so each job title was varied.

After the titles were created these were also imported into our main project. 

After the editing was finished we exported the file by clicking 'file' > 'export' > 'Quicktime Movie' 

The making of our animated logo

At the start of our thriller project we made an animated sequence for our production company. This logo was made using Adobe photoshop.This picture is a square and to use it with our thriller we will just place it onto a white background to make it blend into the rectangular video shape.

We started off by drawing the outline of the 'bearded man', in a rough sketchy manner to give it a hand drawn appearance. We also chose a font for the text.

Fill was then applied to the image 

After the image was completed, we tried various fonts to see which would look the best with our logo.

Once the image was completed we moved on to using the photoshop animation to make the bearded man wink and then open his eye again, we also made the text fade in just as the wink goes down and it stays black and visible when the eye opens back up. The file was then saved as a .mov video file so it could be imported into our final cut project. 

First draft of our project

This is the first rough edit of our project, titled "Missing. Overall I was very pleased with the first draft, however there are many changes and improvements that need to be made, which I will cover in a seperate post.

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.