Rough Cut Feedback

1) How well have the technical areas been produced? (Camera, Mise en Scene, Sound and Editing)
- Use of long shots and blur worked well, and created enigmas.
- Long transitions with the overlap give the audience something to focus on all the time.
- Costume is realistic and makes the audience relates to the character.
- Natural lighting shows the use of the flashbacks
- Sound track is parallel to the narrative and genre of the clip.
- The clothing and make up on the girl creates enigma as we wonder why she is hurt and in this state.
- Sound track is parallel to the visual, engaging the audience.
- Used a variety of shots, costume and makeup fit the story line.
- Really good jump cuts and blends between the scenes.
- Camera techniques and positioning are good.

2) How well has the genre characteristics been used? Can you identify the sub genre?
- We identified the sub genre as crime, but can clearly state that it looks like a thriller convention as it has common thriller traits.
- Hard to identify the sub genre of this thriller, by the shot types and editing I could tell this is a thriller.
- The soundtrack and sound effects create an eerie feel; it creates a distorted effect which contributes to the enigmas. The blood on the costume is scary - crime? The added sound effects add to the thriller genre.

3) What do you like about the rough cut?
- Realistic costume, lighting, location. Really effective soundtrack and sound effects. Clear use of flashbacks which create questions, the variation between the clear and blurred shots mirror the blurred memory.
- In rough cut I like the background music as it fits well to the genre and there are different sounds blending together. Also I like that some of the sounds were louder and could only be heard for a few seconds, when scenes from the previous night were shown. Another thing I liked about this rough cut were the transitions which were added because it makes it more interesting than only using cuts.
- I liked the constant blur at the beginning of the rough cut. Excellent editing which gives it a mysterious feel.
- The flashbacks continuity really good, sound track creates a sense of ambiguity regarding the narrative.

4) How can they improve the rough cut and what constructive criticism can you give the group?
- Establishing shot of the pub could have been clearer. The shot of the necklace could have focused on what she was holding so it is clearer. Pub scene could have slightly higher key lighting to make the narrative clearer.
- Editing is good but too many dissolves, could use a different transition.
- Costume needs to be a little more extreme, (i.e. torn a bit, more cuts to show where the blood is coming from and emphasise the necklace a bit more.)

Practice Soundtrack

This is our practice soundtrack for our Thriller. We were mainly getting a feel for Garage Band and figuring out what sounds are available to use. We also wanted to figure out what kind of sound we were aiming to use and how we wanted the track to flow. By doing this we have realized that we would like to use a slow mellow track with bold flash back noises to fit in with the different scenes.

Final Production Logo

WHO

Practice Production Logo For Our Thriller

This is our practice idea for our Production Logo. As we have called it "Clockwork Productions" and used cogs to show this. We feel like more editing for this logo is greatly needed and we need to rethink the font choice for "Clockwork Productions" as we feel like it doesn't match what we expected it to look like. However, after making this practice logo, we now have a clear understanding of what we want to create, and how we want it to look. We want the font to be simple because we think it will get the message across and simplicity is sometimes better. We would also like to make the cogs more creative and maybe involve them in with the words. To create this we used Photoshop.

Thriller Moodboard

Animatic

Rough Cut Of Thriller Opening Sequence

This is our rough cut of our Thriller movie opening sequence.

We used Final Cut Pro to edit this sequence and Garage Band to create the sound track. We overlapped the clips of the girl walking down the alley to emphasise her possible 'damaged' or 'detached' mental state. The lapping over parallels her confusion/distress as it gives a dazed feel. 

We then used several vinyl scratching sounds to make the 'flash backs' distinctive to the audience. The same sounds will be used throughout the opening so the audience will always have a clear idea that these are flash backs and when they start and finish. On the actual flash back filming we used a vignette filter, we will also used this effect on every flash back. This will make it seem like a blurry or hazy memory.

For out final edit, we will use a white glow/flash to indicate when the flash backs start and finish.

We are also going to re-film the 'flash back' scenes as we felt there was not enough planning and the lighting was quite dark. We also wanted to make the 'hand grab' as they walk into the pub more exaggerated; this plants enigmas in the audiences mind and sets up the film to come.

Logo Analysis

These are the two production companies that are going to be analysed by their similarities and differences in;

- Layout

- Structure

- Iconography

- Font

In Paramount pictures, the layout for the production logo is quite specific. It uses many stars to specify around the mountain top and also to phrase the main title of this production company 'Paramount'. The structure for the logo clearly expresses the type of films this production company has produced, as the production name is sitting on the mountain it could reflect the movies produced by this company are at the very top and has a high end reputation. Also, the font from the company title links in with the iconography of the mountain top picture, it shows its natural (as its in a mountain area) elegance in the sense that the films produced are like this too. The use of colour in the logo is quite subtle and natural colours of light pinks and blues for the sky.



As for Dreamworks productions, the whole the layout of the logo is in the sky surrounded by clouds with a young boy slouching on the moon, fishing. As for the structure, the first thing you notice is the picture of the boy fishing on the moon with the company title sititng below the moon. Not only does the company name give it away but linking with the colour scheme of the night blues, the logo comes across quite dreamy and almost unimaginable. Also the font has very big and bold letters for the production title to inform the viewer that the films they have created are quite loud and childish. The logo as a whole as for the iconogrpahy, this would come as across as unusual and quite playful as this production company creates family/ childrens films.

Location Reports

This is the alley way that we will be using in the filming of our media thriller. The reason that we will be using this alley way is because the other alleys in the local area were too bright and open and we found that they were quite busy throughout the hours that we would need to use it for filming. This alley way was suitable to use because it’s fairly dark and windy and it had the right atmosphere about it for the scene that would be filmed. When doing the filming it was quite sunny for a change and it our planning it was meant to be quite dull and gloomy because the time of day was meant to be early morning, but because the walls are quite high it makes the alley quite shadowy and dark so we didn’t think this would be much of a problem.
Risks of using this location are quite low, with things such as pedestrians walking by, which will interupt our filming, and if we were to have to go back and do filming again things such as litter and rubbish or angles could affect our filming, the last risk we could think of is whether, if we were to start filming and then it was to rain this would be a risk, and also if it was to be very cold whether this could reflect in the acting of our actress.

This is the car we will be using for our filming; it is a W reg Renault Clio. The reasons in which we are using this car are because it belongs to one of the girls in the media group. throughout the media filming we will have to load the car with four people the car is a good size as its not to cramped, the only down side is that it doesn’t have 4 doors, but inside the car a scene of the media the sound effects of the car locking is heard when the protagonist is on camera, this car has the ability to lock to car with a button in which it makes a loud locking sound so this makes the car suitable to use.

Risks of using the car could be also quite low risks such as the lighting in the car, although we have artificial lighting, because the filming for this scene is done in the dark, this means that the camera may not pick up alot of light and it could affect the filming.

This is the Prince Albert pub in windsor, this pub will be used as our hang out sport in the thriller, the reason we picked this pub in particular is because our filming is done on a saturday night and because alot of pubs in windsor will be busy at this time we have used this local pub as a girl in the media group works his and has access to a different entrance to use for this part of the sequence.

the risks of using this pub are a medium, as the pub is on a main road and we have the risk of lots of passers by, and people inside the pub that could be under the influence of alcohol which could lead them to do silly things and get in the way.

Story Board

Production Schedule and Risk Assessments

Shot List

Questionnaires and audience profiles.

This is our primary research. We created questionnaires to find out what people enjoy watching based on their age group, interests, where they live, and their economic status. From this we were able to get information from people aged between 16-50. This helped us find out what age range enjoys watching thriller films. We found out that the older the person is, the less they enjoy watching a thriller film. Teenagers aged between 16-20 (male and female) were more interested in them. This informed us that our thriller opening sequence would need to relate to teenagers or young adults, because that is the general age range that enjoys watching them. By doing this questionnaire, it allowed us to have a full understanding about what the audiences enjoy watching, and what specific films. Because we had a wide range of ages it made our results more reliable rather than just on one fixed age group.

This is an audience profile for the films, Orphan, The Omen and Taken. We can see that the main age group that watched this film (Orphan) was 15-24. This tells us that this thriller appeals to teenagers and young adults mainly female. The Omen however appeals to mostly males aged 15-24. Again this shows that the main people wanting to watch these thrillers are young teenagers/adults. Taken is an action thriller. Young males aged 15-24 tend to watch this more than females. We can see from these audience profiles that we need to make sure our Opening Thriller Sequence will appeal to audiences of our age range (15-24) and we will need to stay clear of Action Thrillers if we want it to appeal to a wider range of people. We will aspire to make a psychological thriller as this will grab people's attention and make them confused and ask questions.

This is our outcome from the questionnaires we distributed. This shows our target audience and what their interests are and what Sub Genres they watch. We will aim to make our thriller opening sequence to relate to modern day teenagers as much as possible. This will be to make the overall clip realistic and relatable.

Practice Editing with our Test Shots

Here we have edited a short clip in the style of how we would like our final opening sequence to look. We experimented with our test shots to make the alley scene to make her walking process shorter and to give a more distorted and confusing effect but confusing as in giving the impression the character is confused or in distress.

This is our editing on Final Cut Pro to show how we created this mini clip.

Test Shots

This is our test shots on a similar location. We wanted to practice walking down the alley and the car scene to test if the camera angles work well, or are simply not as effective as we hoped. Overall we filmed the shots which we thought would be the hardest for example, filming the antagonist's eyes in the car mirror in a professional way. When we tested the protagonists eyes looking scared in the back seat, her face was very dark because there won't be any light in the car at night. to over come this issue we have decided to film a couple more practice shots using a variety of shots and angles at dusk/night time. This will enable us to have a better awareness of the shots that work well in the dark incorporating the car and pub scenes.