Note to Examiners

I hope you enjoy our film and my blog. When viewing any presentational devices I would recommend that you view them in full screen for more clarity and if you are unable to read any images clearly then you can click on them to view in full screen.

Thanks Andrew Roth

'FINAL STATUS' thriller opening

Preliminary Task (completed in January)

One mistake that was made during this task was the breaking of the 180 degree rule and the principal reason behind this was that in order to film from the correct plane, more space was required to place the camera in the correct position. Because of this, what you see in instead at 6-8 seconds is the reversal of planes. However, following further research into the 180 degree rule, it became apparent that this rule in today's industry is seen as more of a guideline as opposed to a 'rule'. The sole purpose of the 180 degree rule is to prevent the audience from becoming disorientated, thus breaking the immersive experience of the film/clip. It is one of the techniques used to establish a logical coherence between shots and is most commonly associated with conversational shots.

In this example, we see a clear violation of the 180 degree; it is far more applicable to conversational shots as there is no particular reasoning behind it. A breaking of the rule is usually for added emphasis. Ultimately the breaking of the rule in the preliminary task is far less intrusive than this example, mainly because it is a close-up and that the shot duration is only 5 seconds, subsequently making it harder for the viewer to notice the discontinuity.

Another, more minor mistake was the lighting issue that takes place from when the girl is walking to her seat at 12 seconds and the conversation which follows. As the girl is walking to her seat, we can see a fair amount of light being shone on her character with the use of the key and fill lights. However as she takes her seat, we experienced a significant drop in lighting and because of this, the light was compensated in post-production, by increasing the exposure levels. Despite losing added detail and an increased amount of noise, the lighting in the final clip seems to be relatively consistent.

This was my first experience working in a collaborative environment whilst filming, and the dynamics of the group was managed with significant ease because everybody was assigned a different shot to take. I was delegated the role of filming the first two shots and also playing the person who found the wallet. Having had previous filming experience, I decided to take a more directorial approach, outlining to my group where I felt the camera should be placed throughout the shoot. 

This was also the first time I had experienced a professional camcorder, but having my own camera was helpful in that I knew how to adjust the settings, e.g white balance, aspect ratio etc. My main issue was working with tape as opposed to an SD card. My initial problem was working out where to film from on the tape, for fear of overwriting previous shots, however this problem was only short-lived. 

In terms of meeting the deadline for this task, proceedings were fairly straight forward. We were given one, one-hour lesson in order to film all the necessary shots, and then the editing took place in the following week, where the group spent several hours over the course of two-days editing the shots together. 

As this task was filmed within the confines of the school, we didn't really come across any health and safety logistical problems. This task was shot in our media suite, so in terms of logistics, everything that was required for this task was already set up e.g. the cameras, the lighting and the editing software. 

Managing human resources was also straightforward. Because we had all delegated different shots to take amongst ourselves, that meant two of the four people in our group would have to act in the conversation. Costumes weren't used in the task and the only prop that was used was the wallet which was someone's from the group. 

As we completed this task from school, the cameras were already set up for us to use, however the settings needed to be adjusted throughout the shoot, for example the lighting difference between the corridor at the beginning and when the girl enters the room. Things like white balance and exposure needed to be changed, but this was handled well by our group. Also the placement of the camera was done with efficiency, for example changing the angle or the height of the camera or tripod. 

When managing the lighting, we used some of the lights provided for us in the media suite. We used two fill lights which were aimed above the characters because we didn't want too much light in the scene, in order to match the feel of situation. Because of this, we got some nice looking contrast, particularly on the girl.

The editing for this task was completed in Adobe after effects 7.0. I chose to use this program because I am familiar with its layout from other projects I have edited. For the final piece, I will probably use Adobe Premiere pro because as a group we need to all be able to use the same editing software. In terms of the editing itself, I cut the single raw file into the sections I needed for the task and overlapped them at the appropriate time in order to demonstrate the match-on-action cut. Apart from straight-cuts, the only other effect added was exposure compensation in the conversational shots.  

Project timeline 

As this was only a short task, the storyboard was fairly simple and only outlined a rough idea of what we wanted to achieve as a group. This was also due to the fact that this task requires a specific set of shots, so in this case we were limited to the kind of shots we took. Because of this, many of the specific shots we took were improvised, because we already knew which shots we had to take. In terms of the story itself, we knew we wanted to have some kind of an interrogative scene and made good use of lighting facilities that were available to us. The script only needed to be brief so for that reason, we only needed to write down a few lines for the actors to rehearse.

The digital technology available to us certainly helped us develop creativity because having the ability to cut clips easily with the use of the editing software not only allows for efficiency, but also the way in which the clips are cut helps for continuity, e.g. match on action as well as helping with the pacing of the clip. Through these techniques you can emit either a sense of danger (with fast cuts) or calmness with slow-paced cuts. The use of the cameras also helps to tell a story, for example in our task, we chose to track the girl throughout the scene, mostly with long and medium shots and we felt this helped to create a sense of tension and uncertainty, in particular the close-up on the opening of the door. The breaking of the 180 degree rule could also be interpreted as a way of emphasizing the importance of the door being opened; what is through the door?

In our piece, the girl represents the common behavior of people when in tense situations like being interrogated by someone. In a scenario such as this, humans have an innate inclination to deny an accusation ("is this your wallet") even if they know they are lying. As the story continues, we later find out that the wallet was in fact the girl's and that she had stolen it. She knew the consequences would be more severe if she didn't own up, yet she insisted on taking a risk and lying. It was this character trait that we were trying to represent in the piece. 

The realism in this piece is created through the girl's decision to deny accusations of stealing. There are many people who will watch this piece and relate to it; they are willing to take the risk of lying and not getting in trouble or being found out and landing in increased trouble. 

The mise en scene helps to further enhance the realism of this piece. The setting in a school helps to ground the piece in reality and make it more relevant to the audience. The actors are two college students which again strengthens the reality of the piece because many viewers will be able to relate to these two characters in their everyday lives. The style of the camerawork is conventional as opposed to using canted angles or abstract shots and this also helps emphasize the reality of the piece; the absence of ambiguity helps the audience to relate to the piece, like it is just an ordinary occurrence that anyone may experience in their day-to-day lives.      

      

Evaluation Question 7: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation question 6: What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

VOICEOVER


Assuming we were working alongside our Production companies, in particular OpenRoad Films, there would be a budget used in order to advertise our film to people and hopefully attract a reasonable amount of viewers.

Some examples of where we may advertise would be on billboards, bus stops, cinemas and online services such as netflix, Youtube, Spotify etc. With the increasing growth of the online market, I think a larger distribution of the advertising budget would be channeled into this area, particularly since our film is not aiming to be shown in the big brand cinemas like VUE or ODEON.

Evaluation Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation question 3: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Evaluation Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The most important message we wanted to convey in our film is the idea that cyber bullying can affect anyone without us realising that it is even taking place. It is extremely difficult to identify those who are bullying and those who are victims of such abuse and we wanted to make this point in our film.                                                            

We believe in modern society there is very little one can do to identify someone who is being bullied online and this is why we made our actor dress up in a very typical outfit for someone who is aged 16-19. There was also the more in-depth decision to have our actor dress in red because we felt that was a good representation of danger within our film, hence why we chose the red car to be the one of key significance because it stood out from the rest of the cars within the frame. 

Typical teenage clothing often found in Topman, River Island etc. 

                                  

With the bully, again we felt if we were going to create a realistic depiction of bullying, we shouldn’t revert to creating a stereotypical image of one because we are trying to show that a bully and his victim are indistinguishable, which is why he is also dressed in typical clothing, though we wanted him to dress in darker clothing to perhaps make it slightly clearer to the audience.

There is also a height difference between the two characters and in this sense we are reverting to typical conventions of the genre in that generally speaking, the character with more power will be of a bigger physical presence. However as you see in the film, and in real life, one can not judge a person on face value and although our character Sean is smaller than his bully Ollie, the effects of abuse have taken its toll on him and despite perhaps being weaker he feels that he must carry out his revenge no matter what obstacle stands in his way.

This was the realistic mentality we were trying to capture in our film. If someone is being bullied, they often show a disregard for the consequences of their actions even though they may be harming themselves and those around them. In this case Sean does not think of the consequences he may face when knocking Ollie out because he is so overwhelmed with anger.  

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

VOICEOVER (you may wish to turn the volume up and use full screen; the image has been cropped in blogger)

Audience feedback and Evaluation

After we had finished making the final product we organised an interactive feedback screening for our film. We made posters and put them around the school in order to inform people about when the screening would be taking place.

Here is a video from the screening session, unfortunately since I could not bring in my camera on the day of showing, we had to record it with Sam's iPhone and the quality is not particularly good, especially the sound, which is why I summarised people's comments in headings in the video. Nevertheless, the feedback which we were given for our film was very informative and helpful in identifying some of the things which could have been improved.



Some additional feedback which was given and not shown in the video included acting which the audience seemed to enjoy, particularly Elliot's performance as Sean. They also touched upon the POV shot towards the end of the film which one person really liked.

We also had two teachers viewing the film and they both really liked it, in particular commenting on the use of the sound score which they felt contributed extremely well to the action, and they thought that the audience were genuinely engrossed in the action.

One criticism they had was the use of the location in the school, but I argued that we wanted to create a real environment for the characters, who are teenagers so it isn't that surprising that we used a school. Also we made sure that we weren't filming there for a particularly long duration, with the main focus being on the garage scene.



The second part of our Audience feedback included a post-production questionnaire which we designed. Unfortunately we were unable to get as many entries as with the pre-production survey but regardless, the comments were still very helpful.

Even though we didn't get as many entries this time around, I believe similar results would appear had there had been 50 entries. It was clear that sound was a part which was very well utilised in our film and this backs up the views that were made in the audience screening. The results are quite ironic in that they differ vastly from the pre-production survey. Camerawork and sound were the two elements which people thought were least important when watching a thriller, yet they felt we carried it out the best.  

These results were very pleasing and I was happy that we received mostly 4s out 5 in all the cinematic elements, with the exception of the storyline which was perhaps the one result that didn't come as much surprise as I'll mention in the feedback section. The other results were not too surprising and this was a helpful bit of feedback.

Again these results instilled me with confidence about our film in that most people felt that it could go on to become a full length movie and that most people were engaged in the opening. 

Here is some of the specific feedback we received in a probing question. Some of the ideas are very interesting and certainly could be used as potential storylines. 

Overall, the feedback we received was very insightful and it was interesting to gage what a real audience thinks about your work because you can often make the mistake of thinking what you have done is good and in your head it makes sense but when you actually show it to an audience, they aren't on the same wavelength as you. This was evident with the storyline which perhaps in our heads was clear, but it wasn't explained as well as it could have been. Rather than use dialogue, we wanted our story to be told through social media devices because that is the most prominent theme in our film and the mistake we made was not making the screenshots or the text message stay on the screen for a long enough time. 

That said, it didn't seem to put off our viewers that much and it didn't detract from the overall feeling of tension that we were trying to give off and also since it is the opening to a thriller, there is certainly room for more development and understanding. The initial ambiguity is not atypical of a thriller, so this wasn't the worst mistake we could have made; nobody seemed to pick up on any particular technical issues which was good. 

post production storyboard

This is the final storyboard after post-production and it is interesting to see how things have changed from the original storyboard. The main reason for this was because of the change in location to a car warehouse so we had to alter the story in order for the location to make sense. However the main outline of the story has still been retained for the most part.


post production storyboard - slideshow

Production Schedule

During the filming process it was essential that we made a production schedule, otherwise shooting would have been completely disorganised, and it would have resulted in us having very little time to use our location.

That said, we were still on an extremely tight schedule, particularly in the warehouse, which, being our main location, we had to maximise and get the best out of it because we weren't given very much time to film there. Therefore it was extremely important we had a rough idea of how long things would take to arrange and the schedule was made in light of the fact we would be quite rushed. Overall we found this schedule to be invaluable in the filming process.

Production Schedule by armedia12

Film Classification

Foley Sound

Once we had imported the clips, we knew that for certain scenes, for example the warehouse that foley sound could be used to give the scene a bit more realism, so we tried a couple of different methods in order to create some atmospheric sounds. The sounds were recorded with the built-in mic from the camera and the recording application from an Iphone. Although some of the sounds we created may not be used in the final project, it was certainly a fun experience doing foley and sounds really can be created from the most unlikely sources.

Here, we decided to tap the red head light which gave off a metallic rattling sound like garage doors shutting

Rustling the air vent also produced an eerie quality which is good for creating atmospheric noise. 

Although the picture may not be that clear, Sam is closing some curtains and this also produces a similar sound to that of closing shutters, which could also be used in the warehouse scene. 

Editing

Editing is a fundamental element of the post-production process in filmmaking and is essential in keeping the viewer engrossed in their visual experience, particularly through the use of cuts and other continuity editing techniques, which have been previously mentioned in the preliminary task. Maintaining a good pace throughout a film is one of the most important elements to master and this is something which takes years of practice; knowing when to cut clips or when to use a transition.

This presentation introduces and explains the software used in order to edit our thriller film.

Music Update

After a while, I eventually received permission from the band "Breakdown of Sanity" to use one of their songs which i mentioned in my music research.

However, since the the editing process was already taking place, we decided that after having added daniel James' composition to the first bedroom scene that we preferred the more suspenseful cinematic music because it was almost in perfect sync to the on screen action, however this may yet be subject to change.

Design of Title sequence

When designing my group's title sequence for our thriller, it was important that we understood the conventions of a title sequence and the commonly used order that comes with it. After carrying out some in depth research into the origin of opening credits, I found out that in older movies, credits would normally appear on a blank, black screen with a very basic font and next to no animation involved; it was seen as something that had to be put in by definition. On top of this, there is also a common convention of the ordering of the credits with people like the director typically coming last and the producers coming first.

Nowadays, many directors like Christopher Nolan, the Coen Brothers etc. have chosen to not even include any credits or even the title sequence. Other directors use opening titles to great effect and have it deliberately tie in with the theme or event which takes place in the movie and this is personally something I wanted to emulate when making our title sequence. My inspiration for this idea mainly stems from looking at ARTOFTHETITLE.COM, where I did some research on Dawn of the Dead and was particularly drawn by the way the titles were animated like blood splatters.

With this in mind, I wanted to make our titles link in with one of the key themes of our film which is the use of technology and the modernity of social networking, as well as the negative connotations that come with it. I wanted to create a data glitch text which appeared on the screen in a very fragmented nature and this clearly ties in with the theme of social networking. The glitch also represents the darker side of the internet as you commonly associate glitches with viruses.



This title sequence will be used in the final piece and will be overlayed on top of the actual video footage and this is a choice made more because having a black screen wastes the amount of time we can have of actual footage. Had we not been restricted to 2 mins, I would have personally done the names on plain black because it makes the titles stand out more.

Risk Assessment

It is vitally important that when going to shoot on location, a risk assessment is carried out because as a  director, your producer would need to know that the place you are shooting in is safe and appropriate to film in. The risk assessment simply lists the potential hazards that could occur when on location and the measures that have been taken to ensure safety.
        

Final Production Logo

This is the final animated production. It appeared that my group members were happy with the logo so there was no need to try and design another one; instead I tweaked the animation, in particular adding motion blur to give a more professional look. Unfortunately, the quality isn't particularly good on youtube because it has been compressed but hopefully it will look better in the production.

Overall I'm quite happy with this logo and considering this is only my second time creating a intro like this, I think it came out pretty well.

Production Day 2

In terms of the final location for our warehouse, this changed because unfortunately we failed to get a reply from Shurguard. However this definitely worked in our favour because my group member Zach managed to arrange the new location in a car warehouse, which certainly helped boost the production value, the expensive cars made it seem a lot more professional. It also tied in with our story which we altered slightly in light of our location. The bully is from a very wealthy family and he posts on facebook a picture of his new car. Sean sees this as a way to lure him in to a trap so he goes over to the warehouse and threatens to damage the car. The climax takes place from here.

Regarding the filming on the day, we arrived at 10am and began to set up our scene, following close attention to the storyboard which another group member had drawn. Although we brought lighting along, we felt it wasn't that necessary. However in hindsight we thought it would have been a good idea to have turned off all the lights and just used the redhead. We filmed a variety of different shots in order to create a suspenseful ending to our opening, e.g. establishing shot, over-the-shoulder, longshot, POV etc.

My favourite shot in the film is the last one which I worked on, which is in the clip below. We tried using the dolly but unfortunately we couldn't get it low enough on the ground. Instead, we used our initiative and found a skateboard lying around and we used that to create our smooth tracking shot at the end.

Once we had recorded all the primary shots, we then filmed some extras with the time we had left. For example we asked the manager of the warehouse if we could film inside one of the Aston Martins which he happily agreed to. We even filmed an alternate ending and will decided which one to use when we begin editing in the coming days.

Music Choice

As previously established, Music plays a vital role in thrillers, so when deciding which soundtracks to use, you have to make sure it is appropriate for the film and works well with the on-screen action. The presentation below shows some of the steps of my individual research and the eventual conclusion that we came to as a group.

Initial Production Company creation

As mentioned in the previous post, we wanted to make our own company logo specifically for this film and with that we began brainstorming a host of different names, some included: cut-throat productions, ripper studios, Hitch studios, Late8Films. Eventually I came up with DarklightFilms because I though it sounded quite eerie and had a good idea for a logo.

In this area of the task, I feel as if this is a great time to utilise my experience with After Effects and a 3rd Party plugin called "Element 3d" by Video Copilot. Not only will I be able to design a professional looking logo but I can also animate as well as demonstrated in the video.

I will stress however that this is the very first design and animation and is very much subject to change. Firstly, if a better name comes up then I will happily re-design a new logo, or if we stick with this name then I will certainly be tweaking a few things to make the logo look better.

A brief explanation about the video, I first picked the Font I would be using and created my scene by creating a dark vignette, making the background dark but gave it a bit more depth. Then I went into 'Element' and created 3d versions of the texts and then began to animate them by using keyframes.

This is eventually what I finished up with; I added the lightbulb to match the name and a little optical flare on the lightbulb to give it a bit of life. 

Production Company research

In order to produce a film, it is important to have a production company on board in order to help give financial support as well as help get the film to market. I have done my own individual research into film companies to see which one would be most suited to our film. On top of this we are going to have my group member Zack's company, "SLIK studios" on board the project as a co-producer; I have re-coloured his logo to a reddish colour to fit the theme of our film.

We are also in the process of founding our own company logo specifically for the film, which I will be personally designing an animating with After Effects. This will leave us with 3 co-producers and as explained in this Presentation, we felt this was the best decision.
              
        

Production Day 1

As shown in the video, this was day one of shooting our thriller and it began with the bedroom scene establishing Sean Williams as our protagonist/recluse who storms out of his room following abuse from his antagonist, Ollie. We arrived at our location, which was Zack's house at 2pm and we began to set up the scene. In the video you will see us putting up posters and placing action figures and other such items around the room and everything is deliberately placed to establish Sean as your typical teenager/nerd without becoming too stereotypical and this is why we made sure not to cover the wall in posters because we felt it would ruin the message we were trying to give off. Sean clearly enjoys his video games as indicated by the desk and this suggests his lack of social skills.

In terms of the filming, this went relatively smoothly. Essentially we kept to our storyboard in terms of what we wanted each shot to show but on the day we filmed several different shots with each of us coming up with different, creative ways of filming the same shot and this is good because it gives us options in post-production. More specifically, I filmed the opening sequence of the establisment of the bedroom and Sean storming out of his room. For another one of the shots, I needed Zack to help me rack focus because with the camera, it is extremely hard to film and pull focus at the same time which is why had a focus puller. Unfortunately, we only had 2 hours to film with Elliot so we didn't get as much done as we wanted, but in the time we had, we did a good job.

Actors

When choosing an actor, we made sure that the person had had prior experience acting in front of a camera and fortunately my group member Zack knew someone who he had worked with on previous occasions as well as being a good friend of the group and this made our job much easier, because I find it is much more comfortable directing someone who can be patient.


Protagonist: Sean Williams (Elliot Conway)

We felt Elliot would be the perfect actor to play our protagonist, Sean Williams, because we felt he could adapt well to his lonesome and reclusive character and this is helped by his appearance, in particular his height because it suggests a sense of vulnerability and weakness. We told him to dress in some red clothing because it connotes anger which is the message we are trying to give off throughout the opening because it leads into our climactic ending. Working with him is also very easy because he understands exactly what you what from him as a director and he has the ability to portray emotions very well. 

Antagonist: Ollie Harris (Sam Simmons)

We decided to use our group member Sam because mainly because of convenience. We recognised that he would not be the main character and so having a lack of acting skills was not paramount for the part that he would be required to portray. It is also appropriate to use Sam because he is distinctively taller than Sean and this puts him in a initial position of strength and also demonstrates how in reality, physical presence doesn't affect the mindset of someone who wants to inflict pain against their enemies. It was also very easy to work with sam because he was also on board with the filming so this meant that he understood exactly what kind of shots we wanted to achieve with him. 

Location research

location scouting - free slideshow maker with music

With the storyboard in place, we now needed to find an appropriate location to shoot in and I decided to compile our research into this kizoa presentation. It shows our initial scouting of a location owned by a company called SHOOTFACTORY which is a professional location hirer. They had the perfect location we were looking for in an eerie, authentic looking warehouse which would have been great for our last scene. We did e-mail them and they got back to us almost immediately but unfortunately the costs for rental were far too expensive and more suitable for people on a low budget, not a 'no budget' production like ours.

After this we decided to look for a more practical location and instead looked at real self-storage companies in the hope they would be willing to lend us one of their storage garages for our production. We have emailed Shurguard storage facilities and failing this we will look at Safestore or Big yellow self storage.

In terms of the scene in the house, this will likely be filmed in the house of my group member and we don't feel we are looking for anything specific with the house because we want it to look like an ordinary teenagers room. Also our main focus is on the storage facility because that is our unique location and our shot in the house will not last very long because we know that house scenes are very generic. 

Equipment

The Canon X1H1a is the camera we will be using to shoot our thriller, and this is certainly a new experience for me because I am used to using my DSLR, the Canon 550D which is a much newer camera. Despite its age, this camcorder can still record in a native 1080i, which is high quality. The reason this camera works well for our film is that it creates a nice film grain which will give our thriller a more authentic feel as opposed to a digital camera which produces a clearer image. In order to achieve this look I have been testing out the settings of the camera, but unfortunately can not upload the footage until the final film because I can not capture the recordings. 

The Sachter dolly is another new piece of equipment to me and one that I will certainly hope to utilise in our thriller. A dolly shot is an effective type of shot because it gives movement to the on the screen action and can be used to create a certain type of emotion depending on how it is used. For our film, I think it would be appropriate to use it at the end because it can create dramatic effect as it slowly moves from the scene of action. 

In the video you also see the Ianiro redhead light which I was testing out. It's extremely powerful so it would be very useful as a key light or even a fill if it is aimed upwards at a ceiling. For our thriller this light will probably be used in the final scene in the storage facility to create some harsh lights on our characters for dramatic effect.  

We are also using a Manfrotto Fig-Rig and this will be an integral piece of equipment used in many of our shots for our film because as a group we feel that particularly for the thriller genre, camera movement is essential because it helps immerse the audience in the action by getting up close with the characters. Using this fig-rig helps to absorb a lot of the camera shake, particularly with the Canon because it is quite heavy and gives us a professional, steadicam look which I really wanted to achieve. 

Storyboard/and initial synopsis

To summarise the initial idea for our narrative, the protagonist is a 16-17 year old boy who we will depict as a kind of recluse/socially inept character. His only real form of social interaction is through the use of social networking, which as mentioned in previous posts, plays a vital role in the story because he experiences a form of cyber-bullying which puts the boy into a state of manic depression/anger. In terms of what is drawn on the storyboard, we have the boy stealing a bike from his antagonist as a way of getting revenge. He messages the other boy telling him to meet at a storage facility where his bike will be found. When the antagonist arrives, he sees his bike and enters the storage unit. In terms of the ending, we currently have the idea of the storage shutters closing slowly and moments later blood will begin to seep out of the gaps in the bottom. This part however is very much subject to change because we have thought of several different possible endings; one thing we do want is the antagonist to be killed but our plan is to record several different endings and decide on which one we like the most. 

In terms of the storyboard itself, we designated one person to draw in our group which wasn't myself because unfortunately, I can't. Instead, my job was to describe to my group what I wanted from each shot in terms of camera angle and shot type. Unfortunately, this storyboard perhaps lacks in a certain amount of depth but this is mainly because our original storyboard and narrative was not approved by our teacher, so we had to redo it in a short space of time. This storyboard was approved by our teacher but of course it is subject to change. 

Specific Film/technique research

For this section of pre-production, I continued with my research of thriller, this time looking at some titles we studies within our media classes, as well as finding some other clips that may be useful resources to use when making our own thriller.


In this opening title of 'Dawn of the Dead' (2004), I am looking closely at the animation of the titles, rather than the footage itself because I feel a montage would be an innapropriate way of introducing the plot to our thriller. In terms of the text, I really like the way the colour and animation fits the on screen footage; red connoting the colour of blood and it animates of the screen much like blood dripping down a wall. For our thriller, I would like to base the text of the titles around our theme of social networking and digital technology. For this I will animate the text the in After Effects so I can create the look I'm going for.







In this clip, 'Se7en' (1995) I really like the way in which the footage, coupled with the text creates a schizophrenic, unnerving feeling. The use of quick cuts and Extreme close-ups definitely helps enhance the feeling of mystery and suspense, and perhaps something I would look to include in our thriller film. Like with 'Dawn of the Dead', the text matches the on-screen action as it jitters around the screen, which is also something I can implement when animating the text titles. Finally I really like the sound used in this clip, the persistent screeching adds an additional layer of suspense to the opening.





In this short film, 'TELL' (2012), I am focusing mainly on the opening but also the film as whole. The elements of this film that I am looking at in particular are the use of cinematograhphy and sound, two features which are absolutely essential for a thriller. The excepetional use of both these techniques used in this film create an enhanced sense of realism, thus heightening the feeling of suspense. I like the way the film begins in Media Res, immediately capturing our attention, and this is something to consider for our film. Following the two character's argument, we follow the protagonist back into the house where he kills his girlfriend and This is my favourite part of the cinematography. I think the way the camera slowly follows the protagonist into the house whilst we hear the faint screams of the girl is particularly scary and shows that in order to create suspense, you do not need to show the violence, but instead let the audience use their imagination. This particular 'on the shoulder' shot is something that I will almost definitely be implemening somewhere in our film because I think it is extremely effective.
        I also think the musical score in this film is incredible, especially considering the film was produced on a low-budget; it sounds extremely professional and on top of this, the composer has given permission for people to use the music in this film, provided it has been payed for and credited appropriately; it is likely we will be using some of the music featured in this film.






In analysing this short film, I am focusing particularly on the excellent use of the mise-en-scene. The location used in this clip, is something that as a group we are looking at a similar one to use for our film.   An abandoned warehouse does a great job in adding suspense as it makes the character seem small and insignificant. Also we are trying to be original with our location and I think a warehouse is as such. The use of props such as blood and the knife are also used to good effect, creating added realism. Another aspect of this film that I like is the narrative. Although there is no dialogue, you can see the director is clearly trying to evoke a true sense of dark humour, particularly with the fact that the janitor ends up being the vicious murderer, who ends up having to 'clean' up his mess. This sense of dark humour is further emphasized through the use of contrapuntal music at the end of the clip, which creates an eerie and psychotic ending.

Audience Research and evaluation

The next part of my pre-production process was to carry out audience research, in which I used two methods; a one-to-one interview and an online survey. I chose to use both methods because they have their own individual benefits in terms of feedback. With the interview, I get a far more comprehensive and personal opinion from the questions I ask, which subsquetly allows me to ask more probing questions, e.g. asking the interviewee what they thought about our group's initial storyline. The setback of an interview is that the answers given are from only one person's perspective and opinions are very much subjective and varied when asking questions like I did in the interview.

The audience research on the other hand has given me a much broader range of answers in which I can draw more conclusive results. The site I used, surveymonkey.com also created an accurate set of results based on the answers I received from each indivisual survey, collating them into a simple graph that I can evaluate more easily. The weakness of this method is that I can only ask a certain set of questions which limits the variety of answers I will receive. Also most questions I asked only required a tick in a box or a one-worded answer, unlike the interview where I received a more detailed answer.

The interview



This interview was useful because it told me that this person (Matt) found sound and editing particularly important in order to create suspense and action, elements which he drew upon from his favourite thriller movie 'Taken', an action-thriller film. It is clear from not only the interview but also the survey that many people enjoy a combination of action and psychological tension in a thriller film. This will be important when formulating the narrative for my film, as I hope to incorporate the feedback I receive. After telling the interviewee about our initial storyline, it was a positive start to receive good feedback. In particular, Matt liked the idea of including a relevant theme to the narrative being a social network because it is something that millions of people interact with on a constant basis. By exposing the darker side of social networking i.e. cyber-bullying, we have created a foundation for the narrative because it is this act of bullying which causes the protagonist to react in a psychopathic way towards his antagonist. What makes this more shocking is that although the film may be dramatised for cinematic effect, ultimately the storyline does raise real-life issues and concerns about the way we use social networking. It is no secret that cyber bullying is an ongoing issue and there have been many stories of the recipients of online abuse reacting in terrifying ways e.g suicide, violent behaviour etc. By using cyber-bullying as a central theme of the narrative, we are making it more relevant to the audience, and therefore we hope that this realism will help create a more tense and exciting atmosphere.


Online survey




































We decided as a group that we wanted 50 results as it is an even number and so easier to analyse as results. The first question we asked was whether or not the participant was male or female and this is a typical question asked in a survey in order to identify who your audience actually are. In our case, the vast majority of the audience were male and this was to be expected from a survey on thrillers; it seems males tend to enjoy this genre more than females and this may be because males tend to find action and suspense more exciting than females who generally prefer more lighted-hearted genres such as comedy or romance films. Because of these results, We acknowledge that our thriller will likely be reaching out to a more male audience, however our decision to base our film around a universal theme such as cyber-bullying and social networking means that a female audience may enjoy this film in the same way a male would.
          The second question asked was the age of participants and unfortunately I made this question open which meant a graph could not be generated from the results, so I had to manually work it out and the average age was around 16-17 years old. This was most probably because I shared the survey on Facebook so naturally most people who completed it would be a similar age to me. This was also the reason why as a group we decided to centre our initial storyline around the age of 16-17 because it is more relevant to our audience and also more realistic because most cyber-bullying affects people around this age group.

I felt that this question was important because I wanted to get a better idea of what my target audience wanted from a thriller and it was clear from these results that psychological and action thrillers are the most popular. With this in mind, when creating our storyboard will we try to incorporate a combination of both these genres using techniques used in the two types of thriller.

This was probably the most important question asked in the survey because It was an unpredictable one and prior to receiving the results I had no idea how they would turn out, whereas with the majority of the other questions I could generally predict what kind of results I would get back e.g. male and female and age. Although as a media student, I understand that all the different elements that make up a thriller are just as important as each other, I needed to gage the understanding of my audience. It is clear from these results that when watching a thriller, the elements which stand out most for them is the storyline and the feeling of suspense. The fact that camerawork only received 2 votes was the most surprising result for me because as you learn about the conventions of a thriller, you realise that camerawork is arguably the most important element when creating a film, but clearly as an average viewer it is not something that people generally pick up on because it is not something that an audience will consciously be aware of.

The final question was one that was catered towards our idea for our film specifically. We wanted to see how important it was to our audience that the theme of the film was something that they could relate to. One of the conventions of a thriller is that any object or character is represented realistically to some extent, because it is this realism that causes the audience to feel empathy and emotion towards the character. From the results, we can't really come to a definitive conclusion but we can say that it obviously plays some importance for the audience and this is helpful when creating our characters for the film because our idea is to make them relevant to the audience which will subsequently help enhance the narrative and allow us to make a more suspenseful opening.