Question 3.

I like the song itself it had a good beat to it also the characters fitted the music video and made it look very real and true life. I like how the ancillary text also matched and linked in with the video it worked well as a whole.

I like the use of cuts within thew usic video, it fits in nicely with the song as there is a different pace throughout the song and the cuts match these really well. I also like the poster and how the glasses are used as a trade mark this is really effective.

The editing matches the beat and pace of the song perfectly. The poster is really effective and stands out, also the digi pak is good how it keeps in with the whole genre of the music video.

The music video has a good variation of good camera angles, also some nice locations used to film in. The music video followed a good story line and also worked well with the characters used there was a good real connection shown.

It is good how the ancillary texts follow the codes and conventions of a professional music video. They linked in nicely to the music video.

I really like how the clothing of the characters is rather casual and trendy to fit in with the genre. They also suit within the age range of the characters. I also like the theme of the digi pak and poster as it stays with the pictures of the main guy this is a good way of advertising the new album as the audience can notice the same guy.

Location sheets

Edit decision list

Photo's of my group editing and filming

Filming

Filming

Editing

Media work

Media-Catherine Bolton

Section 1-The thriller genre

Definition: A thriller is a genre of fiction that attempts to thrill the audience by putting the characters at risk.There is no clear ingredience of what a thriller should consist of. A thriller is a problematic genre. A thriller can be capsized by fast paced editing, action, heroes, who must outwit the villain. Devises such as red herrings and cliff hangers are usual.
Thrillers usually take place in exotic places, foreign cities, deserts, etc. The Hero is usually a ‘Hardman’ accustom to danger usually normal people. Thrillers often overlap mystery stories, however thrillers usually work on a much grander scale, big crimes, mass murders etc……….

Sub Genres- Action thriller, race against time, contains violence.Conspiracy thriller- Hero contains a powerful group crime thriller.Hybrid of crime thrillers- They focus on crime films and thrillers focus on criminal rather than the police.Disaster thriller- Is a conflict against natural disaster.

Drama Thriller- Slow paced, great deal of character development.Eco

Thriller- Protagonist must rectify environmental problems.Erotic thriller- Popular since the 1980’s- Fatal attraction.Horror Thriller- Conflict between the main character is up against a superior force.Legal Thriller- Layers in danger, have to do the case to save their lives.Medical

Thriller- Heroes are Drs who solve medical expanding problems.Political Thriller- The Hero must create stability for the government.Psychological Thriller- Conflict is mental and emotional.

Spy Thriller- Is generally a government agent Bourne identity.Supernatural Thriller- Conflict usually involves supernatural powers.Techno Thriller- Focus on literal equipment.The

Transformed City- There your thriller is set in a large urban environment. Set in the modern times.(GK Chaterson)Should expose the poetry of life. Everything’s a bit boring and dull. It is set in an ordinary boring place, and then it gets transformed with a big disaster involved.Heroic

Romance-Usually set in a romantic city, the hero is someone romantic. The laws of nature are suspended. An ordinary person becomes the hero, because their in an unordinary circumstance.

The exotic- The place in which it is set in is exotic.(John Cawelti)Within the thriller there has to be something exotic in it. Many thrillers make use of the middle east’s artefacts.Mazes and Labyrinths-(WH Matthews)Is full of dead ends and twists (within the plot.)Maze should be complex; the solution isn’t found easy, as the viewer your given clues. The audience gain pleasure for prolonging the puzzling journey.

Particle Vision-(Pascal and Ortiz)We as an audience only see so much, we don’t see everything, and some parts are hidden from us. So it can be built up to a good part, Which we are allowed to see.

Concealment and protection(Lars ole sauthborg)It uses the suspense technique, to pull the audience in different directions, deliberately hiding something from the audience members.

Protection- Delays what is going to happen.

Questions and answer model.(Noel Carroll)

The audience is always asking questions, the audience should also be left with the questions, to make them want to watch more (kept in suspense.)The questions need to be clearly stated, red herring? Set the audience up with the wrong answers.Moral factor, where should the text go? Should the killer go to jail? Is it really going to happen?

Wednesday 22nd of October.

Today we finished of watching the rest of the film se7en, which we have watched over several lessons. We then analysed the opening scene of the film, and discussed what was used in it, this was to give us a good idea when we are ready to make out own thriller opening.

Section 2- Research into examples of comparable media products

After watching all four opening of the thrillers, I compared them all and described what similarities they all have.Most of the thrillers we have watched have linear narratives in the opening sequences. They all contain the transformed city. Each of the openings make the audience question things. Particle vision also is used for all of them; things seem to be hidden from the audience. Something is always concealed and suspense is always building up throughout the opening.

The graphics are usually black or white, or both.

The music builds tension which is inline with the shot. There are always lots of tracking shots used to follow someone. Also close ups on important things, there’s a few over the shoulder shots.

Long shots are used to show how small or weak someone is.

The editing makes the pace of action. Neither of them have much dialog, which is to keep us in suspense. There’s always a clear location.

The camera movement makes us feel we’re peeing in and that we shouldn’t really be there. Eye line shots are used in them all aswell. The titles always stand out too.
There is non-diagetic sounds used to lead the audience. The graphics always fit the style of film.The status of the characters is clearly set out. But something unusual about the characters is presented to you. Effective lighting-contrasting themes/night-day.There is usually red herrings at the beginning, elements of death is often present too. Weapons are often about but not used in a conventional way.

Long takes are often used to build suspense. Point of view shots are common, there some elements of destruction. Elements of hand held cameras are used sometimes.

Thriller Analysis Title of film: Jaws

Narrative structure-
It’s linear because we have a clear beginning, there’s equilibrium. There are lots of teenagers on the beach having a party, they are near the sea and you can tell there’s some sort of creature in the sea and we know that this creature is going to get the girl. The narrative structure leads the audience to want to watch it and find out what it actually is in the sea.

Thriller Codes and Conventions-
There’s particle vision used for the creature in the water we don’t see it but we know its there somewhere in the water.

The transformed city is the beach. It’s generally a safe place to be. There’s concealment and contraction. We don’t know what the two teenagers are going to do? We don’t know what is actually under the water? We don’t know what’s going to happen to the girl? The question and answer model is present here.

Camera Work-
It opens with a point of view shot, we don’t know where we are, which makes it unsettling for the audience. Panning and tracking shots were used under water, throughout the reef. There’s a mid shot of the teenagers on the beach, then the camera tracks across them as if we were at the party. There is a few over the shoulder shots, which symbols that we shouldn’t really be there, and maybe they shouldn’t be there either. The camera tops and gives a close up on the ‘hot boy’ then on the ‘pretty girl,’ to tell us that those two are the main attraction/focus in this. The camera tracks the two teenagers along their journey to the beach. When really we know we shouldn’t be watching them. Low angle shot of him when he falls making him look weak. Then there’s a long shot of her as she goes into the water. There an extreme long shot of the bell far out in the water to show how far away the boy is from the bell. There is then a close up of her alone in the water as he is still on land.

Mise-en-scene-
It’s set on a beach, near the sea somewhere; it’s a general place of safety. There’s teenagers moving around the beach, quite slowly, they are all drinking and in no sense of rush, just generally having a good time. Then there energy as the two teenagers start to run off and into the sea for some fun. Its quiet dark throughout the start of the scene and its hard for the audience to see what’s happening, but also it could mean that the characters cant see where they are going which makes it unsafe for them. Something dangerous is bound to happen. They are just wearing normal teenager like clothes.

Sound-
There’s the jaws theme tune which is non-diagetic music, which is the tune for the purpose of the audience, to lead them to feeling in a specific way. There is a bit of dialog, laughter and music. The diagetic sounds was the bell in the sea which was in the background which symbolised danger. When she was dead it rang again.

Editing-
There is a long shot on the beach which is really unusual as it records a lot of the scene in it. Then there’s a shot reverse shot when the girl and boy are starting to hook up which is before the beach scene. Under the water there is a long shot on, then it cross cuts form ‘jaws’ to them on the beach, which isn’t really related.GraphicsThe graphics are white big and bold, and also central. This makes them in your face on screen. They also look maritime, to link the theme of the film. The director’s name is made big on screen, showing his importance and the same with the production company.

Thriller Analysis

Title of film: American Psycho

Narrative structure-
The linear narrative is it shows him getting ready in the morning after a night out, it shows his routine of what he does in the morning. There’s a clear beginning, we are introduced to the killer straight away, we see his face and we are introduced to his daily life. Its equilibrium, we’re shown the man is slightly disturbed.

Thriller Codes and Conventions-
The transformed city is the night club. We are always left asking questions whilst watching it. We wanted to know- Who is he? Who was the lady in the bar? Will he kill her? What happened last night?

Camera Work-
There is an over the head shot showing a crowded place, which is the club, which could show it’s the place to be. There was also an over the shoulder shot as if we we’re peering into the man and the bar maid’s conversation. There’s also a tracking shot as of we’re walking through this apartment. There’s a range of close-ups of him, there’s long shots, mid shots aswell. Each close-up highlights something important in his life. There were quite a few shots and close-ups when he’s picking up all his beauty cosmetic bottles.

Mise-en-scene-
There’s a contrast between the dark under lit lively night club, to in the morning, in his very white, very clean apartment which is very bright and plain.

Sound-
The diagetic 80’s music in the club sets the scene, showing the time period. He has classical music playing in his apartment which is unclear to the audience; it is neither diagetic nor non-diagetic. The narration is non-diagetic. The dialog talks about killing.

Editing-
There’s a shot reverse shot, which shows the girl and him talking, the editing is quite slow and doesn’t really move the narrative along. The editing highlights his obsession with his appearance.GraphicsThe graphics were white at the beginning and they were in capitals, they had contrasting fonts.


Thriller Analysis

Title of film: Se7en

Narrative structure-
It has a clear beginning, it’s a linear narrative. You have a person who is building up to doing something. The book opening resembles the opening of the scene. The audience are only given so much of the sequence in order for the story to be kept secret at the start, making the audience want to carry on watching it.Thriller Codes and ConventionsPartial vision was used throughout the opening of the film. We are given a little bit of who the person is. The question and answer model is used throughout the opening. Who is it? Where are they? What are they doing there?

Camera Work-
Extreme close up of the book, and the flicking of the pages, but we doing know what he’s reading. He’s slicing the top of his finger nails off, but we’re not sure why he’s doing that, the audience are left thinking. There are a collection of extreme close-ups done in sequence. There are panning shots, across a filing cabinet. The camera keeps on focusing on the book.Mise-en-sceneThe mise-en-scene is unclear for most of it. It looks like we are in some sort of office. The shots that are used don’t give much of the mise-en-scene. The character is moving very slowly.

Sound-
There is heart beat sounds introducing it, then an intense beating noise over that, that gets loud the further we get into the film, there are also screeching noises and creaking chairs in the background. There’s alienated noises, and very unnatural sounds present in the scene. There’s also a sea-saw noise which starts when the pace gets faster the tension goes bigger.

Editing-
Fast pace editing, with lots of cuts in it, the use of split screen has been used to show the passing of time, strobe lighting has also been use.GraphicsThe graphics were white and they where sort of child like written, they flicker on and off the screen and they are usually quite central. Usually the graphics are left standing on a blank screen. Strobe light has been added to them. We don’t know as an audience member where the text/graphics will be on the screen.

Thriller Analysis

Title of film: Silence of the lambs

Narrative structure-This is a linear narrative structure, there’s a lady running on a journey to somewhere, then an FBI man comes up to her and says she’s wanted. The FBI man has a hat with the letters FBI on making it clear who he is. She then goes and she runs through some sort of working place involving guns. She’s the only women around the place. She goes into the room and something is hidden from us the audience members, then she looks at the things on the wall and her boss enters the room.

Thriller Codes and Conventions -The Question and Answer model is used. Who is she? What does she do? Why is she needed? There’s particle vision as we don’t know who’s watching her. Enigma code is also present; we don’t know what’s going on.

The transformed city is the forest leading into the police force. She is the element of exotic, as she is the only women. The rest of them are men.Camera WorkLots of panning shots are used, the camera follows her, there’s an over the shoulder shot when the FBI man appears, which leaves us with suspense. When she is in focus usually the background is blurred and out of focus.

Mise-en-scene In the elevator, she is dwarfed by these big men all in red tops, which could show danger and she’s there in a grey top which make her stand out. Whilst she goes through the room where they make the guns, she shows no fear showing she is brave. Something’s are left from us through mise-en-scene. We don’t know what’s on the wall in her boss’s office? She moves in a quite manly way.

Sound-
The Diagetic sound is the sound of her feet. You also hear gun shots. There are natural sounds of leaves and grass beneath her feet and then there’s the sound of her breathing which is non-diagetic. There isn’t much dialog said and the dialog that is said is only at the end.EditingThere’s an eye line match used, through the characters eye, so we can see what she seeing, also a match on action from different angles. There was quite a slow pace.

Graphics-
There is black and white bold credits which could also resemble the FBI lettering , the graphics were also central to the screen, which meant it sometimes blocked screen a bit, which was part of out particle vision.

Thriller Analysis

Title of film: Sin City

Narrative structure-Linear narrative shows a lady on the top of a sky scrapper, she is in a bright red evening dress with matching lipstick. We are not to sure what they are doing there. He is speaking over the top of the action. Its equilibrium as we know he’s the killer, as he shoots her straight away.

Thriller Codes and Conventions-
Heroic Romance-The city life, we’re not sure where it is we just know they are high up on a sky scrapper. We are left asking questions. Who is the lady? Why is she stood near the edge on her own? Is she going to jump? Who is the man that joins her? Concealment and contraction- We don’t know who the lady and man are, are they a couple?

Camera Work-
An above the head shot following her walk to the edge, as if we’re watching her. Then as the man walks up to her, he is in full shot coming closer to the camera. There is a few close ups on both of them as they are talking to each other. There is a slow zoom in from the balcony and it zooms into their conversation.

Mise-en-scene-
It is set on the top of a building, at night time. All you can see is the lights of the other buildings in the distance. Her eyes are a very bright green, they stand out. She seems scared to be there. It’s raining all around. She is wearing a very red dress, which could signal danger; also her lips match her dress. He is dressed very smartly in a suit.

Sound-
There is classical piano music in the background, which is diagetic. You here the sounds of rain in the background, there is also a lot of dialog, mostly said by the man who speaks out his thoughts. You can also hear car noises of the busy road below. There is diagetic sounds of music in the background, it is classical music.

Editing-
It starts with a shot from behind and above her, as if we are watching her to see where she is going. Then there is a shot that the man walks into, then there is an over the shoulder shot when they are talking, also there is an eye line match.

Graphics-
The graphics are red block capital letters, which looks like it is symbolising blood and also danger. The text is on a black background making it stand out. There are also scary images behind the text.

05.11.08

Today we watched the opening of American psycho so we could analyse another opening to a thriller.

Section 3-Brainstorm of content and classification

Today we were split into groups, these are our groups that we will be making our thrillers in, I was put into a group of three, this consisted of me, Tom Jones and Andrew Ward Jones, we then started to brain storm our ideas for what we thought made a good thriller.

Here is what we came up with-Claustrophobic.
Anti Climaxes.
Cliff Hanger.
Little Girl.
Foster home.
Red Herrings.
Detective(s).
Shock Value.
Mind Games.
Pictures.
Weapons.
Surreal.
Tension.
Twists.
Murder.
Trauma.
Dolls.
Blood.
Dark.

Section 4 - Audience research
Below is our questionnaire

1. Are you male or female?……………

2. What is your age? ……

3. Out of the following which is your favourite thriller genre. Action Thriller. Supernatural Thriller. Crime Thriller. Other. If you chose other, please state the type of thriller …………………….......................

4. What type of setting towards the end of the thriller would you prefer? Wood land area. Abandoned House. Derelict surrounding? Other? If you chose other, please state the type of setting……………………........................

5. What character traits would you most like the Hero/Heroine to have? Short-fused. Patient. Mysterious. Easy-going. Intelligent. Resourceful. If you have any other ideas, please comment…………………………………........

6. Would you like to see weapons in this film? Yes. No. If you answered yes, please choose one of the following: Gun. Knife. Something more obscure.

7. What appeals more as the Hero/Heroine. Male or Female?

8. What appeals more as the Villain. Male or Female?

9. Do you think the killer should be introduced right away? Yes. No. b) Why?………………………………………………………………...............................

10. To give an idea on the type of character you would like to see, please name your Favourite Hero/Heroine that’s appeared in a thriller……………………………….................


11. What is your all time favourite thriller movie?..........................................................

12. Do you like having red herrings (twists and turns) included into a thriller? Yes. No.

13. Do you think that some blood and gore would make a thriller better? Yes. No.

14. Do you have ideas on what you would like to see in terms of a story line? Yes. No. If so, please write them here (Keywords) …………………………………………………..…........

15. Do you prefer the finish of a movie to have everything resolved or do cliff-hangers Still give movies good endings?...............................................................................................

16. What do you think has the most impact on a movie in provoking strong emotions? Sound. Editing. The Story line. Other (If so, please state).........................................................

17. Do you think that a lot of character development needs to be focused on in order for a thriller to succeed more? Yes. No. b) Why?.............................................................................

18. Do you find a movie more compelling if it based on facts or true stories? Yes. No.

19. Do you have preference on if a film starts from the beginning or halfway through? Yes. No

20. Lastly, do you prefer shock value or some sort of predictability?......................................






































12.11.08-Today in media me and my group came up with 20 questions for our questionnaire that we would distribute to 30 students around our college.13.11.08Today in media we split our 30 copies into 10 each with in our group and then gave them out to 10 students each students around the college to fill out. Then we met back up to tally them all up.

17.11.08-Today in media we started to collect in all our results up from the questionnaires, in order for us to find out what people prefer see to in thriller films.

19.11.08-Today in media we started putting our results from the questionnaire into tallies and then we copied them onto the computer and put them into and pie charts formats. Making it easier for us to read the results.

20.11.08-Today in media we started to get the final plot together, so we had a good idea what we we would be having to film for our thriller.24.11.08Today we carried on with the plot and the basis of our story for the thriller, we filled in various sheets with information about our film.

26.11.08-Today we were finishing of things that needed to be done for Friday, such as the treatment and other forms of paper work.
27.11.08Today we were checking we had done all our paper work ready for tomorrow in order for us to start filming next week. We had our story boards to finish of and then we were all done.

Section 5- Treatment


Production group: Catherine Bolton, Andy Ward Jones and Tom Jones
Production name: (working title)-Little Murder

Film classification
We are making it 15 and not an 18 as one person in our group isn’t old enough to be able to watch an 18 so we wouldn’t be able to make an 18. Also making it a 15 allows a bigger audience size to watch it.

Synopsis
A little girl drawn to insanity only to be accompanied by massacred dolls. A foster home houses this disturbed girl and the history of her upbringing behind the mystery of her dead parents will be revealed.

Treatment.

The film opens with a frontal close-up shot of a young girls feet as she rocks back and forth yet we can’t quite see what she is doing. The next cut focuses on the little girl’s hand in which she is holding a toy doll, until she drops it, past the camera, to the floor. There is then a quick cut to the floor just in time to catch the doll hitting the ground, the camera focuses upon the doll for a second or two before panning across the floor, showing us more dolls, yet these are all broken, beheaded etc. After we see this mass of doll parts on the floor the next shot is again a pan, yet this one goes upwards to focus on the little girl whom is sat by the wall, still though we don’t get to see her fully, there is still an element of partial vision present. The camera then cuts to black so the viewer doesn’t know what is happening until we finally see a bit of light come through, we see the girl is almost stood over the camera and has just picked up a teddy bear of some sort from what we presume is a toy box (We can’t be sure but are led to believe this because of the position of the camera). It now cuts to the height of the girl just as she turns away, this will be so fast that we, the viewer won’t be able to focus in time, still keeping partial vision. We follow the girl back to her sitting place, as she turns to sit, we again cut away, this time to a shot from overhead, as though we are looking from the ceiling, this shot is important as it will establish the environment and show the girls vulnerability. Still keeping in mind of hiding her identity, we have yet another close up shot, first from the left side of her face, this will better help the viewer to understand her expressions and what her mood is, we then have the same shot, but on the right side of her face for the same effect.

The next scene opens in an office where we see two cops or detectives speaking with what seems to be the owner where we find out that this little girl is now in a foster home, here we found out the tragic news that her real parents and two more foster families have actually died in horrific ways, and how it seems to have made her demented and rather reclusive.

The police are now rather suspicious and believe that somebody is actually targeting the young girl, but why do they keep leaving the little girl alive? They start looking for suspects, searching for clues. Meanwhile, the little girl has been given special security to make sure she is not killed by what they think is the murderer even though they have absolutely no leads. As a last resort, they return to the house where the first murders were committed, they stumble upon drawings of people being murdered that have been drawn by someone young, with writing that they can’t quite decipher.

The police then return to the foster home where she is being kept and find her to be gone, but there has been a book left behind but all that is left is a book full of childish inscribings left throughout the book, over and over again. The film will leave on a sort of cliff hanger, there is quite a loud bang that comes from the cupboard nearby, as the detectives slowly move towards the cupboard, this will create a huge amount of tension. The, they open up the cupboard and all we see is their expressions before the camera slowly fades out.






Section 6: Character outlines and script

03.12.08

Character

An 8 year old girl, called Ellie Williams, she has brown hair and brown eyes. Ellie is an average height for a girl her age. She also has long hair which will make it easier for us to hide her identity when need be.

Clothes and propsShe will be dressed in ordinary clothes, and shoes, for an 8 year old, this will help to create the deception we need for however we long we decide to keep it that way.. The props we will use will be the bed in the room, a toy box filled, and a couple of dolls with which she will play with and eventually rip apart, paper and a pencil for when she draws in her notepad.

Character outline

She is a young girl, who looks very innocent and shy to look at, but there is more than meets the eye, she has a very dark and gloomy past behind her which now affects her future. She doesn’t speak much in the opening of the film as she is seen as a quiet and innocent little girl. Her mum and dad died a while back and also two sets of foster parents that she has had, she has moved around quite a bit between different houses and also schools though she now is schooled at the foster home as she can no longer cope in an environment like this, which makes it hard for her to make friends with other children. She is a disturbed little girl, rather introverted and she has only dolls as friends. She seems to be cooperative with anything she is asked to do; this will also take away suspicion from her.

Section 7: Reece and location sheets














Name of location: Catherine’s house

Address of location: Private
Contact telephone number: private
Health and safety:
Date of Visit: 3rd of December 2008


Health and Safety

Health and safety is important to any kind of production, we need health and safety to be taken into account as it will ensure the safety of ourselves, the actor/actress and maybe even more importantly, your camera equipment. We need to take out certain procedures for our production too because if we don’t, we may get injuries, broken equipment etc. So below we will talk about certain rules that we need to follow in order sure there is no chance of any risk and harm that may occur.

No trailing wires – We need to be sure that there are no trailing wires on the floor that we may trip over whilst holding the camera, precautions we can undertake are taping the wires down to the floor to greatly minimise the risk or, we could just simply move them out of the way to the sides of the room.

No nearby water – We must ensure that no water or liquid is left lying around because it could inadvertently wet the equipment and make it malfunction. Any water that we do have in the room must be at least kept in a bottle with the top on; it must also be kept as far away from the equipment as possible.

A clear area – This ties in with further above when we talked about the wires. We must ensure that the area in which we are filming is clear of any hazards that may make us trip and fall, the props that we decide to use must be picked up after filming as if they are left lying around then they may also make us trip.

Enough light – We must make sure that there is enough light in the room that we are using, one reason obviously being that if it is too dark then we can’t capture the action but also to ensure that we do not walk into walls because we can’t see etc. If we have any filming that requires dim light then we must not walk around with the camera as it will create all sorts of hazards.

Camera safety – There must be two people stood with the camera at all times so as to not allow it to fall over, or so that we can make sure that it is set up properly so there is no chance of it falling to the ground and breaking.

The exits – The exit out of the room must be clear of anything in its path because if it isn’t then it could create difficulties if we need to leave in a hurry. The camera may not be left in front of the door either, because if it is, this then means that if anyone opens the door, they would hit the camera.

Keep track of equipment – Every member of the team must know where all the equipment is at all times so as to make sure nothing is lost, this includes the cases, tripod, camera etc. When not using a certain piece of equipment, it must be kept in a safe environment to be safe in the knowledge that nothing will end up broken.

Section 8: Production material

(STORY BOARD HERE)

Section 9: Production Schedule


Film Title: Little Murder

Director: Catherine Bolton, Andrew Ward Jones, Tom Jones

Producer: Catherine Bolton, Andrew Ward Jones, Tom Jones

Client: OCR Exam board.

Production started: 17th November 2008

Production Completed:19th of December

Treatment started:30th November 2008

Sent to Client: 19th December 2008

Storyboard started: 26th November 2008

Completed: 28th November 2008

Shooting started: 3rd of December

Completed: 4th December 2008

Post-production started:10th December 2008

Completed: 19th December 2008

Rough cut submitted: 12th December 2008

Final show tape completed: 19th December 2008


Location equipment required:
Cameras
Tripod
Battery kit
Tape

Transport requirements:Walking

Crewing requirements :

Camera people: Catherine Bolton, Andrew Ward Jones, Tom JonesSound: Catherine Bolton, Andrew Ward Jones, Tom Jones

Lighting: Catherine Bolton, Andrew Ward Jones, Tom Jones

Post production assistant: Catherine Bolton, Andrew Ward Jones, Tom Jones


Section 10: Video Log Sheets

Section 11-Audience feedback

Here is the questionairre that we gave out in order for 20 people to anaylis our opening to our thriller film Little Murder.

Questionnaire-Little murder

1. Did you enjoy the thriller? Yes No

2. What did you think worked well, e.g.? Colour? Graphics? Props? .....................

3. Did you think the story line was interesting? Yes No

4. Did the start of the thriller want to make you watch the rest of the film?

Yes No

5. What could have looked better? …………………………….


6. Did you like the graphics? Yes No


7. What was your favourite part of the opening? ……………………


8. Out of a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best, what would you rate
the thriller?

9. Do you think the effects used looked good? Yes No


10. Did the sound fit in with the thriller film? Yes No

11. If you had to add one thing to the thriller what would it be? …………………………….

12. Do you think the editing was good?
……………………………….

Here is the reslts after giving this questionairre out to 20 people.

The results to the Questionnaire-
Film title Little Murder

1. When asked ‘Did you enjoy watching the thriller film?’15 people said they enjoyed watching the thriller and 5 people said they didn’t. So overall there was more people who enjoyed the thriller then that didn’t out of 20 people.

2. When asked ‘What worked well in terms of colour/graphics/props etc….’ 4 people said the colour, 5 people said the graphics, 6 people said the props and 1 person said the crazy acting. So overall there was a varied response on what people thought was good, but mostly people liked the props that were used.

3. When asked ‘Did you think the story line was interesting?’ 17 people said yes they did, and 3 people said no they didn’t, making it more people thought the story line was interesting.

4. When asked ‘Did the start of the thriller want to make you watch the rest of the film?’ the response was 15 people said yes they would want to carry on and watch the film, whilst 5 people said they wouldn’t. Making it over half of the people would want to carry on and watch the rest of the thriller.

5. When the question ‘What could have looked better?’ was asked, 1 person said there could have been blood. 3 people said there could have been better graphics used, 4 people said the cast, 4 people said the blurriness, 2 people said editing, 2 people said camera angles and 4 people said the doll. So looking at the results peoples views were very varied when it came to deciding what could have looked better.

6. When asked ‘Did you like the graphics?’ 12 people said they did like the graphics and 8 people said that they didn’t like them, so the results were quite close when people were deciding weather of not they liked the graphics.

7. When asked ‘What was your favourite part of the opening?’ 2 people said the dropping of the doll, 4 people said the doll being hit against the wall, 2 people said the actress in the thriller, 5 people said the child drawing pictures, 4 people said the plot, 1 person said the pace of the film and 1 person said the slow motion in it.

8. People had to rate on a scale of 1-10, (with 10 being the best and 1 being the worst) what they thought of the thriller. 1 person gave it a 2/10, 1 person gave it a 4/10, 2 people gave it a 5/10, 3 people gave it a 6/10, 10 people gave it a 7/10, 1 person gave it 8/10 and 3 people gave it 3/10. So this shows that most people rated the thriller 7 out of 10.

9. When asked ‘Do you think the effects look good?’ 17 people said yes, they thought the graphics were good, whilst 3 people said No they didn’t like them, so on average over two thirds of the people said that the effects looked good.

10. When asked ‘Do you think the sound fit in with the thriller film’? 11 people said yes it did, and 9 people said No it didn’t. The results for this question were quite close for weather the music fitted or not.

11. When asked, ‘If you had to add one thing to the thriller what would it be? 2 people answered better sound, 2 people put more varied shots, 1 person put narrative structure and 6 people left it black. So this shows people had very different views in knowing what they would add to it and even 6 people left it black which could show they wouldn’t have added anything to it.

Section 12

Thriller
Analysis

Title of film: Little Murder

Narrative structure
The linear narrative shows a little girl, in her room playing with her dolls, which she destroys. We dont know when the play is set are notihng indicates this. It shows how she gets her feelings out in drawing. It is a clear beginning that the little girl is obsessed with dolls. We don’t really know why the dolls are present but you can see from the room being filled with dolls, that they take a major part in the film.

Thriller Codes and Conventions
The exotic was a small bedroom in a house,we wanted the audience to feel like she was locked in a small confined space. This was so the audience could feel also locked in. There was partial vision used at the start as you couldn’t see the little girls face, till a bit later on. The Concealment and protection method was used as you were left in suspense as to what the girl looked. Was she scared in some way? We are left asking questions why is the girl tearing the doll apart? Is the little girl happy? Does the little girl have a problem? What is she going to do next?



Camera Work
The camera starts on the floor between the girl’s feet looking under the bed. keeping us in suspense of who she is. This I thought was good for an opening. Alot of varied camera angles were used one that worked well in particular was when the camera into the toy box.There was also a shot used which was from the dolls eyes as if we were in side the dolls head, this was used when the girl was shaking the doll. There was a shot looking down on the girl when she was in the corner of the room, this made her look very small and vunerable, maybe even innocent looking. There was also close ups on the little girls face when she got angry this gave out alot of the littlw girls emotion and let the audience get a sense of what she was feeling.


Mise-en-scene
It is set in a small bedroom in a house. Which is the little girls room, it is rather plain with just white walls and a single bed in it. The floor is fillled with jolls and there is also dolls on the bed. The whole opening is filmed in the room we have her on the bed and also on the floor.

Sound
Was quite disturbing music, it was a tune that repeats. It give out tension when watching it. Then music didnt fit the opening perfectly but I think it did work well in creating some sort of suspence and tension. The sound that was used was non diagetic,it was all music, there was no dialog or real sounds used throughout the opening. I think if we would have kept the banging of the doll on the wall, it would have been more effective having that diagetic sound in it.

Editing
We kept the pace of the opening steady, and we made the pace go quicker in parts like when she was drawing in her book. I think this worked really well as it looked liked she was speeding up the more she got into drawing images. We also did cuts over this so it was as if it was image after image she was drawing. There is also the part in which she is hitting the doll against the wall and that has been speeded up to. I think that also works well as she is getting more and more annoyed with this doll.


Graphics
The Graphics were a greyish white colour edged in a black line, this would resemble that it is a story with a dark meaning. The graphics were rather simple and nicely sized for the audience to read without them taking over the action that was happening.

Thriller-Media Evaluation
Catherine Bolton

In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of real media products?
Film: The opening sequence of a new thriller, including titles, aimed at 15 to 18 certificate audience (approximately two minutes in duration). We were all given this brief which explained that we were to make the opening of a new thriller sequence. Our class then got split into groups, and I was put into a group of 3. I was put into group with Thomas Jones and Andrew Jones Ward. Once we had been put together we started to discuss what we thought made a good thriller. All the answers are written on my blogger.
Before we even started thinking about making our own thriller, we watched a few thrillers so we were clear what a thriller was and what a thriller included. We analysed each of them. After watching our thriller we also analysed that. I realised that the thrillers we had previously watched had more camera angles but like ours it kept you hooked and made you want to carry on watching the rest of the film.
After discussing what we wanted our thriller to include and be about we decided that little girls and dolls were always scary in films, even though not of the thrillers were had watched in class include these we still thought it would be a good idea to involve this. So we decided to thrill our audience by involving a little girl as our actor and then our story line would include dolls, scary dolls. We wanted the girl to have a scary past which could have made the little girl disturbed. Once we had written out the beginning middle and end to our thriller we stared to draw out story boards of what our filming would be off. This included camera angles, how long the shot would be for and also what the shot would look like through the camera. We decided on the opening shot to have the camera on the floor in between her feet. This was to bring in suspense as the next few shots you still don’t get to see whose feet they are.
After watching our finished opening sequence I did think that it worked well. I thought our story line was interesting to audience members. The main type of prop we used was dolls and I think this worked really well into linking in with our story. It made our thriller more detailed and brought it to life.
Unlike normal thrillers we didn’t have a male character as a killer, as we didn’t want it to be your typical thriller movie we wanted it to appeal to a different type of audience.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
We decided to make our thriller a certificate of 15 as, not everyone in the group was 18 so it wasn't right to make it an 18 as one member wouldn’t be able to watch it. Also we thought making it a 15 opens it up to a wider audience, so anyone 15 and over is eligible to watch the thriller. Our thriller showed an 8 year old girl in more depth, it didn’t show your stereotypical little 8 year old girl all girly playing with friends, smiling sweetly. It showed a disturbed little girl in her bed room, with her only friends, her dolls, she destroys them in the stress of being alone and her bad past makes her feel this way. When discussing ideas for our thriller I thought using a little girl would be the ideal answer, as I find little girls can scare people in a creepy way, Just as dolls can. We choose a family member of mine, she was an 8 year old and that was the ideal age for what we wanted our little girl to be. The little girl was a stereotype of what a young girl should look like, very girly and innocently faced. This was to make the audience ask why and how? Why would this little girl have such a bad upbringing that could lead to her being like this? How could the young girl herself be capable of ever hurting or even murdering someone? Our opening sequence to the thriller had no violence in it, as we didn’t think we needed to bring this in, and also as we rated this as a 15 it could have been to much for viewers to watch at this age range. We did have the little girl ripping the doll apart which some people could find rather disturbing but apart from that I don’t think the opening it was to scary.

What kind of media institution might distribute you media product and why?
I think we would see our film on television on a movie channel. As i think it has the potential to be made into a proper film. I think it would interest people as I think the story line is good enough to make people want to actually watch it. I think it could be distributed by it being made for the use of television viewers, with a trailer of the film being broadcasted on television weeks before it coming on. This giving people an insight into what it is, giving people the chance to want to see it in full.
I think looking at our thriller opening and other professional thrillers our film lacks variation of shots, there could have been times where we could have included more interesting shots to make the thriller more exciting for viewers. Some people might not expect a thriller to have the story line that ours does so some people watching our thriller could be disappointed that it doesn’t involve blood or someone getting murder in the opening sequence. I do think that our thriller would appeal to a target audience of 16-19 year olds as I think they would find it interesting that it has a crazy little girl in it. But also I think people older than that age range could find it a good watch as it involves several different happenings that could be relevant it their lives.

How did you attract/address your audience?
Before we even started our thriller we did audience research this consisted of us, writing out a questionnaire with questions on and giving it out to people so we could find out what types of thrillers people liked and didn’t liked. The questionnaire and results are shown on my blog (Section 4.)We added up the results that we received and we decided on a few things we would follow up when making our thriller film. This helped us a lot, as without this research we wouldn’t have had basic idea to start from.


What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
When we started to film the thriller, we set up the room with props and the right lighting then we viewed our story boards. We found it easy to start filming as we had the shot type and length all written down. There weren’t too many problems when filming as we had been taught how to use the cameras properly. We regret not using more dolls as that could have added more freakiness to the opening, also we could have had more body parts of dolls just laid out on the floor, it could have made it scarier. The costume was fine as the little girl was in your average 8 year old clothing, and nothing to scary which could have given out that she was strange. There was a problem with the lighting as one point you could see the shadow of the person behind the camera on the wall where the little girl was so it showed up on the camera. So we had to ore the camera and the person behind the camera so the shadow was not seen.
When looking back at original plan of the thriller, looking at the storyboard I realised we did have a few different changes when we actually filmed it. We also filmed a lot more shots that we had on the storyboard, so we had a good variation of shots. We also had planned to have flash backs with the girls mother, looking back into what life was like when she was a little girl. We decided against the idea when we started to plan out the story board as we thought in the two minutes we had for the opening it would make it to confusing for viewers to know what was happening.
We had a problem when we had to find music for our thriller, as it had to be copyright free and also it had to fit it with our story line. We ended up editing to bits of music into one, but it didn’t work as well as we expected it.
When filming the shot of the little girl ripping the doll apart, we had problems filming it, as our actor found it hard to tear the dolls arms of so it took a few takes to get the right facial expressions and the right match on action when filming it from different angles.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
When we started to edit the thriller we added a black and white effect for the times when the camera was focused on the doll. So it gave a sense of change in the action as it captured the doll and the happenings of the doll. We added titles with our names to it and also who directed it, and who did the camera work which was all of us. I think premiere was hard to use at first as it, there are so many different tools that you have to use when just editing and adding effects, but I got used to it in the end and came familiar to working with the programme. We added other effects like speeding some bits up to add effect like when the little girl was scribbling disturbing drawings. When we were choosing what shots to use it was hard deciding the ones we wanted to as we had a good variety of film work. Once we made a decision we made a decision list.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Before starting this thriller we got given a task to do. This was so we got familiar to using the camera and also editing the work. The task involved someone walking through a door and putting on a pair of shoes. At first it was hard to start, we decided to discuss our ideas and then we drew up our storyboard, including shot length the angle of the shot and also a drawing of what we wanted the shot to look like. We had to make it interesting even though it was a simple task. We all got a turn in filming with the camera, using the camera from different angles. I thought the task was a success, even though my group broke the 180 rule it made us understand that you had to be more careful when filming something. Before this task I didn’t know how to use a camera or the tripod so it gave me confidence using it when filming our thriller. If I hadn’t had done this task then mistakes we made in this one would have been made in the thriller film. Our editing wasn’t fantastic as there wasn’t much we could add on to the filming. We did add graphics onto it though. These I thought worked well. If I did this task again I would have added more variety of shots, maybe some from a higher up level and we could have also used a tracker so it could have ran a bit smoother in places. If I was to change something I might have added more speech into it to make the clip a bit more interesting to watch.