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

          

A thriller is usually defined as a novel, play, or film that has an exciting plot, usually involving crime or espionage. There are lots of different sub-genres of the thriller genre, some of these are comedy-thrillers, spy-thrillers, action-thrillers and gangsters however there are many more as the image below shows.



For our thriller film opening we chose the gangster-thriller style as we thought that this was the sub-genre that would appeal most to our audience due to its distinctive conventions and the exciting narrative. This sub-genre would also be fairly easy to film and to get the mise-en-scene right due to the unique costumes such as the ‘gangster hats’ involved. As well as this we felt that we could edit this sub-genre the most and develop it more to create a more effective thriller film opening. For our gangster thriller we had to make sure that the costumes and lighting were correct as well as the sounds as the audience expects a sense of mystery with this genre and by getting these conventions right we could help to achieve this.

Camera

Shot types is one of the most basic conventions used however can wield good effects if used correctly. Close ups and extreme close ups are often used to show fine detail on objects or to emphasise expressions and body language.

 You also get a lot of over the shoulder shots in thriller films so that you can see the expressions on the other person’s face. These are used because it helps to conceal people’s faces as well as long shots and establishing shots which help to set the scene and provide visual evidence of where the film is taking place.

Like in some real thrillers we have used some of the same techniques to show certain things. An example of where we’ve done this is showing items of importance close up which helps to show what genre the film is and show what might be happening. The key shot that we have used which gives this effect is the close up of the gun.

We wanted this shot to show the significant item therefore we used a close up shot and ensured that the composition only showed the item we wanted to focus the audience’s attention on.

Compared to this close up of a significant object in Se7en.

Editing

Clip and sound editing on thriller films is also a key convention as so many different effects can be added or changed such as the feeling of suspense or vulnerability. This includes mise-en-scene changes such as lighting changes, special effects and addition sound or sound changes. Typically there is fast paced editing in thriller films especially during tension building moments making quick flashbacks and shot changes. This gives the effect of excitement and suspense. This helps to add to the tension of a thriller film and gives the sense of lots of action happening which is common in thriller films as it creates excitement which is what the audience expects.

Conventions

To help achieve the best possible results for this genre we used, developed and challenged some conventions of the genre seen in other films. We used the elements of mystery and the narrative to help build tension in our thriller opening and created this by using the appropriate lighting and sound effects.

We also developed a lot of the conventions of this sub-genre into our own style which helped to put our own style on the film opening and make it more interesting. Some of the conventions that we have developed and adapted was the costumes, the narrative and the props.

Costumes are an example of a convention of gangster-thrillers that we adapted to our own style. We used a slight variation in the type of hats the we used in our film and the suits that the gangsters were wearing.  This still worked though and overall looked quite good.

Mise-en-scene

There are some typical gangster costumes seen in gangster thrillers that we used to help us get the correct mise-en-scene. This typical costume is smart dress, usually a suit or something similar along with shiny shoes and a gangster hat. As these are commonly seen in gangster-thriller films we could help add up to the what the audience would be expecting.

Mise-en-scene is very important in thriller films and can be the difference between a successful or non-successful film. Mise-en-scene includes setting, costume, lighting, actors and props. In a thriller film the setting is commonly a busy setting, often a city as this helps to add to the fast pace of shot changes. Depending on the sub-genre the lighting is often quite dark, or can be taking into account the character. For example in the film Se7en the older detective is shown in a lot less light than the young, inexperienced detective as this shows experience and helps to show that the younger detective is perhaps more vulnerable to mistakes. We used these conventions in our thriller film as we showed our villain in quite a lot of light which showed his vulnerability and the fact that he could be in danger but he doesn’t know it.

Costumes, actors and props are often well thought about in thriller films and often correspond to something important later on such as a gun that may be used to kill someone. Sometimes props and costumes can also give an insight into a character’s personality and can give clues to the audience of what they’re like such as the clock in Se7en and the way it demonstrates how the detective gets away from his job.

Sound

By creating the thriller opening with nobody speaking and just diegetic and non-diegetic sound it made the audience ask a lot of questions and therefore helped to create this added mystery. These questions and mystery are typical of thriller openings as it helps to make the audience interested and makes them wonder what is going to happen. Due to this the audience is more likely to continue to watch the rest of the film and the film is therefore more likely to be successful overall.

Sound is an important convention of thriller films. Sound can be added during editing to enhance and emphasise points. Using the correct sound can wield effective results by adding to the tension and excitement of the thriller film. It can also demonstrate danger or vulnerability and fast music/sound can add to the fast pace of thriller films.

Narrative

The narrative is probably one of the most important conventions of a thriller film as it dictates how the film will proceed. The narrative needs to be exciting with plenty of action but with some mystery involved therefore giving the audience something to think about and keep them interested. Flashbacks are often used to demonstrate time passing.

What we really gained from watching thriller openings like Shutter Island and No Country for Old Men was the knowledge not to release too much information about the narrative. I learned that a certain amount of information needs to be given in order to pull the audience in and make them interested however too much can have bad consequences as some mystery needs to be present to suit the genre of film we were trying to produce. We incorporated this by revealing just enough information to make the audience interested and want to continue to watch the film however didn’t reveal enough to show what was going to happen or to be too obvious about the narrative.

An example of this would be the close ups on the characters faces allowing us to see the expressions and body language. We sourced this technique from No Country For Old Men where we see close up of the villains face while he is strangling the police officer.

This is a point of view shot. We included this shot as we wanted it to show what the victim was experiencing and how it may look to him. The framing of this shot ensures that we can only see the villain and nothing else therefore focusing the audience’s attention on him.

Titles

An additional convention used in a thriller opening is the titles of the film. There are many different styles of adding titles to a film opening including the over the film type whereby the film doesn’t stop while the titles are on and the title are just laid over the picture. Titles are very effective especially if styled in the correct way. One of the most effective titles I have seen was the titles of Se7en which were great quality and showed items used throughout the rest of the film. They were effective because they related to the film and showed important and significant objects that were used later on in the film.

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

     
We chose the characters in our media film opening to try and represent particular groups. We did this by using particular costumes, lighting and personalities. Other things can come into play when representing particular social groups such as gender, age, role, status, class and ethnicity.

This picture is of one of the main characters in our thriller opening. Here we are trying to make him look like the victim. To do this we have used a mid-shot with a high-angled shot to make it look like the camera is looking down on him therefore showing vulnerability. As well as being in a lower position to the camera the effect of him being sat down in a ‘lower’ position than the other character helps to show this vulnerability too. We chose the characters to be male because this is the most likely gender to be getting involved in gangster-kidnaps like this one. We also felt that Cullum would be better for playing this role as we thought that Ryan was better at taking a commanding role and that Callum’s composition within the shot worked better. I feel that the costume and the appearance we tried to convey on this character helps to show this victim type role and shows the vulnerability of the character. As well as this the location also helps, this is because it helps to define the characters and can show whether they are in potential danger or not, as well as this it looks really rough and therefore makes  the area look gloomy and dark and therefore helps to represent the typical conventions and mise-en-scene of a gangster thriller.
 

An example of a real film where this effect has been achieved was in the latest James Bond movie, Skyfall. This can be seen because they are both sitting down in a chair with their hands ties behind their backs. They are also both wearing very similar costumes and can therefore relate to each other quite well.
 

The other key character in our thriller film opening needed to be shown as a villain.

Again for this character we used the traditional gangster-style costume along with the gangster hat which could show that this character is more ‘in charge’ than the other character as he doesn’t have a hat. We can clearly see that this character is looking down on the other character therefore showing this villain type role he is playing. Again we used the male gender to play this role as we felt that it showed more dominance than a female actor, especially in the fact that the person who is kidnapped is a male. This is a slightly low angled shot which also helps to show this self-importance and dominance over everything else. This shot is also a point of view shot of Callum who is sat down in the chair. This is to show what he sees when the bag is removed. This character uses a gun for a prop in our thriller opening which shows that he means business and may be hard to deal with if someone were to get in trouble with him.

This representation can be found in many different thriller movies as there is often a villain that takes on this role however they often get their comeuppance. The film No Country for Old Men has a villain where we see the same kind of style to the one in our thriller opening. The mise-en-scene is also similar as the lighting is dark, there is no dialogue and the framing and composition of the shot is also similar. Also it is especially true when looking at the camera angle and shots as we can see that a lot of the shots are on a slight low angle.

 

Evaluation - Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

 

A production company’s job is to oversee the creation of a film from start to finish. The production company of a film generally finds all the actors and filming staff (director, camera operators etc.). Production companies will accept the production of a film based on how successful they think it could be and therefore how much money they could make from it. They will provide the funding for the film if they think it is worth the money and the risk.

I think a good production company for our thriller opening would be Paramount Pictures as they are a relatively large media production company and therefore would be able to source some of the best actors and provide the funding the film would need to be distributed publically. Paramount Pictures also have a lot of existing thriller films that they have produced or partly produced such as Psycho and Shutter Island, this makes them very experienced in this genre and could therefore wield the best results. Paramount Pictures are a worldwide producing company and therefore would be able to gather the maximum audience for our thriller which would help pay back the budget.

Money is a big issue when trying to fund every type of film as there needs to be a big budget for films in order to get the right actors, props and settings as well as all the editing. Money can be gained from many places however if we were to produce the movie with Paramount Pictures they should fund the film as the production company usually pays for the production of the film as they are the ones who will be making the most profit from films they produce in the end.

Titles are a key part of any film as they stand to recognise everybody who has contributed to the movie and give the audience a point of reference to look up anybody who they would like to know more about such as actors and the other films they have stared in. Many different jobs appear in titles, first the actors in order of appearance then all the backstage contributors such as the producer, director, camerawork then all the makeup artists and costume specialists. We have added some titles showing the name of the film and the actors to our movie. This is common practise in films to credit everybody involved and to provide information of who was involved to the audience. We included them in ours to try and make it as realistic as possible and to provide information for the audience like a real film would. We have followed the order of trend by putting the actor’s names first followed by the backstage contributors. We set up our titles to have a specific cut-away to them where they filled the whole screen rather than having them at the bottom or top of the screen while the movie opening was playing. 

There are multiple other movies that may be produced in the same way as ours would be if they were to be distributed in the same way and be made publically available to everybody who wished to see them. An example of a film that has been produced in this way would be the thriller film Eagle Eye. This is a spy-based/governmental thriller film that was produced by Paramount Pictures in much the same way as I have described. All funding was supplied by Paramount Pictures and the whole movie was overseen by them from the early stages to the distribution of the film. 

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

     

The audience for our media movie is quite large, as this genre would appeal to a wide variety of people. Our general age range would be anybody aged 15 and above as our movie may not be suitable for viewers under this age as it contains offensive weapons (gun) and some violence. Our audience aim is also at both genders as we feel that both could enjoy this movie however overall it may appeal to a greater male audience than female audience as the trend for this type of movie tends to lean more towards the male gender because they prefer the conventions of the genre.

This is an image of our typical audience member along with the details of their interests and therefore how that would affect whether they would watch our film or not.

 

We used various methods to research our audience. The main way that we collected some information was by our audience questionnaires. We handed these out to various groups of people in order to get a flavour for what different age groups and genders prefer in terms of genre of film and what they like in that genre. By making sure that we handed these to as many different types of people as possible it made sure that we got the broadest possible range of views and therefore helped to decide on ideas for our film. As well as the questionnaires we used the class pitch feedback where we gathered some useful tips on how to improve our ideas and develop them further. We also did a lot of research into thrillers beforehand which helped us to see what people liked and what they thought needs to be included to make something into a good and decent thriller film.

Audience research is really important during planning as it allows the production of the film to fit around the audience. This means that the film can be made more interesting for the target audience and would therefore be more likely to be successful. We found out many things from the research that we carried out including which sub-genre of the thriller genre we should use. We narrowed this down to three from the questionnaires, these were a psychological thriller, spy thriller and gangster thriller and then we narrowed that down to the gangster thriller after the pitch feedback. From the other research we carried out we found out what props would be appropriate and the kind of location/setting that would be best for the gangster thriller that we had chosen to do. We also found out that the lighting needed to be quite concealing although not so dark that things weren’t clear. Mystery, excitement and tension also needed to be included according to the research we carried out.

The BBFC age rating that our film would have to have would be a 15. This is because it contains some moderate violence and some use of weapons. Because this is not excessive use and there is no physical footage of anybody being killed the age rating doesn’t have to be increased to 18. The age rating doesn’t affect the film too much as the target audience was for people of the age 15 and above anyway.

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

       

We used many methods that we hoped would attract the audience we had set out to gain. This is our opening shot, we chose this shot because we thought it would interest and intrigue the audience the most and help to give them the enthusiasm to watch the rest of the film. We thought that this shot could achieve this because we wanted the audience to wonder what the significance of the watch was. By giving this watch some significance we hoped it would make the audience interested to watch on and see what this significance was.

Below are some more screenshots of our thriller opening and an explanation of how we thought that these shots and editing would help attract our audience.

I think this shot would help to attract the audience. This is because it is quite a mysterious shot as we can’t actually see who is in it. This mysterious effect is achieved by the mid shot as oppose to a close up of the character as well as the camera being positioned as to not show the whole of the character, especially not focussing on his face. The face is also concealed by the lighting and the dream style lighting effect that has been put on the shot during editing. This makes the audience immediately wonder who it is and what he is doing as he looks a bit suspicious in a suit but surrounded by countryside. The costume that we have chosen really matches the sub-genre of the film too and so will help to appeal to people who like this style of film. The framing of the shots makes the character ‘stand above the horizon’ therefore making him look more important as the shot camerawork makes him look like he’s standing on top of the world and over everyone else and again making the audience wonder who he is and what he is doing.

This mid-shot clearly shows that there are now two people in the scene however one is sitting down. This builds the tension up as the other character is kind of standing over him making the audience think that he may be about to do something to him. The framing of the shot allows for both characters to be in the shot and the effect of them looking at each other and the character standing over the character sitting is achieved by the composition of the shot in that they are the only two important figures in the shot. There is broken glass on the floor which helps to add to the effect and the sounds created by the footsteps on this just help to add to the tension and how the audience might react. As the shot turns the graffiti on the bridge can also be seen making the audience think that the sitting down character is in a very vulnerable position. This is something that would attract people as they would want to know what was going to happen to him.

This shot would help to attract the audience as we have previously seen this watch being worn by the supposed villain earlier on. This will make the audience wonder what has happened to the villain as now the character that the villain was once standing so tall against seems to have got the watch. This shows that it is some item of significance as the shot is focussed in on it therefore giving great detail. The meanings we wanted to create from this watch was that it meant something to the villain and may reveal something shocking to the victim later on in the movie. Because of this potential for importance it draws the audience in and makes them ask what is so special about the watch.

This shot shows that the character is about to do something. This is because he takes his hat off and puts it on the side then returns to face the other character. By taking his hat off it helps to show that he means business and that he is not to be messed with. In this part of the movie there is a little bit of violence which may appeal to some people and especially the kind of audience that we were targeting. This shot pans across while he puts his hat down. This helps to show the audience what is going on and will help them to understand where everybody is situated. The shot is also a slightly low angled shot which helps to show that although the villain may be in-charge at the moment but may not be soon. This will attract the audience as they will wonder what he is going to do and therefore what is going to happen to the other character who is sitting down. The movie opening is constantly asking the audience the question of ‘what is going to happen to him?’ which should draw some interest and attract a larger audience.

Again this shot will help to attract the audience because, as the audience profile shows, they are likely to be into violent games involving guns. With the introduction of a gun to the film this is likely to encourage them to watch the film. Because we don’t see whether he shoots him or not the tension and suspense build up and we have given the audience what they said they wanted on our research – some mystery. Despite the audience not seeing whether the gun is fired or not the shot type provides some clues. This is a high angled shot looking down towards Callum therefore showing that he is completely vulnerable. The composition and framing of the shot shows the chair that Callum is tied to therefore showing the cause for his distress. Because we have proceeded to give the audience what they want they are more likely to be attracted to our media film.

Our thriller film opening related to some other films in the fact that it is predominately made up of flashbacks from the characters past. This effect would appeal to the audience as instead of just following a storyline throughout the film it also follows the character’s personal timeline, this makes the whole film more interesting and has more meaning. Because of this and the way that we have tried to include other things the audience said that they wanted in the planning and research stage of the project we have managed to get some positive feedback on the film opening from our audience members and they have said that overall the film would probably appeal to them. 

Evaluation - Question 6 - What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

     

During the production of our media film opening I have learned a lot of new skills and techniques related to filming and editing a production using the technologies we have used in our group. I have also learned a lot of things and useful tips about these different technologies that I have used.

One of the technologies that I have used and have learned about during the creation of our production is digital recording cameras. The camera we used was a Sony video camera. This camera is quite new and so offered a lot of features such as automatic still shot taking and light exposure settings however a lot of these we didn’t use as we put in these effects on the editing software on the Mac. One of the only features that we did use on this camera was the zoom functionality, especially on the gun shot where we zoomed the camera in quite far. This was used because it allows for close up detail of the gun and focused in on the importance of the object. This effect showed the audience that the gun was probably going to be involved in the film sometime soon.

From using the digital camera I have learned a lot about different shot types available and some of the different affects that they will have on the overall film. Some of the different shot types that we could get from using the digital camera were long shots, medium shots, close ups, extreme close ups, panning shots and establishing shots. To shoot these different shots effectively we needed to use something to stabilise the shots. To do this we needed to keep the camera as still as possible, to do this we used a tripod. The tripod was very useful but needed setting up differently for every shot with different height settings, levels and other positions. There were some shots where we didn’t use the tripod such as the shot that zooms in to the rope and glass on the floor. This is because I needed more free and fluid movement to get the shot right. It was hard to keep these shots steady and I didn’t really succeed however I stabilised the shots on iMovie during the editing stage to give the effect that they were steady shots.  Another factor that effected the shots was the amount of exposure to light on each shot. The camera had an auto focus feature that helped to counter this as it allowed us to focus on specific objects at once therefore being able to break that slight light barrier.

We only had one day to film our so when shooting our media footage we didn’t have much of an opportunity to consider the different weather types although if we were filming over a longer period of time we would have had to due to continuality. For example if we filmed one shot on a Monday and it was sunny, we then couldn’t film another shot on Tuesday that was going to go directly after that shot and it be raining as the continuality wouldn’t be right. Each of these different conditions would provide different types and levels of natural light. As we relied so heavily on natural light for our filming this could have been an issue as we may not have got suitable light levels for our day of filming. On the day that we filmed the light was just right however we still changed some brightness and exposure settings on iMovie during editing to give enhanced effects.

The composition and the framing of the shots that we did was also a very important factor. We didn’t want so much of the surroundings of the location of filming to be seen as this looked very peaceful and natural which wouldn’t be right for the genre of film we were creating. Instead of this we wanted just the bridge to be seen with all the graffiti. This meant getting the right composition (objects and people in the shot) and the right framing so that the things we wanted to be in the shot were the only things and there wasn’t any excess. The screenshot below shows this.

I have learned a lot about the different shots that I could take with the camera and what effects they had on the film overall.

When we had finished filmed we needed to edit our media film opening. This involved putting all the shots together into order and then adding effects to help improve the shots and to make them more effective.

The first thing that we had to do was to import all the footage onto the software that we were using. This software was iMovie on the Macs. I learned how to import all the footage as one however we also filmed the titles on a separate occasion so I also learned how to import individual bits of film which I didn’t have the knowledge to do prior to this assignment.

This screenshot shows the iMovie interface and shows our footage in the software, I learned that dragging the footage from the bottom (which was the footage from the camera) to the top created the movie. Then we could edit the footage in the top box by adding effects, sounds and transitions. The bar between the top box of footage and the bottom box of footage hosts a number of tools that we used including the crop tool, add music tool and the titles tool.

Another of the first things we did was arrange the order of shots to make them make sense and to match the plans. As we had to adapt our idea due to our original idea not being possible on the day we could afford to mix up the shots a little more and therefore had a bit more freedom when it came to this editing stage. I learned about the selection of shots, what effects they may have and how they are important parts of production work. Examples of what we were looking for was still shots, shots will no continuity errors, shots that closely follow the shot-list and shots that work well together and provide good effects when put in the correct order.  I learned a lot about the order of shots and how they can create different effects such as flashbacks and flash-forwards and how they can help to create a sense of mystery and add to tension.

Another thing I learned to do was to add effects such as the dream effect around the shots and speed adjustments such as speeding the shots up in the climax of the opening to create more tension. This also involved inserting sounds and transitions and editing them. I learned how to insert these, position them and how to add sound adjustments and cut them to match the video during my time working on this project. Here are some screenshots of the tools and techniques that I used to do this.

Here I dragged the sound and music files from the bottom right box and positioned them underneath the film snippets at the top. I learned that by dragging the sound files I could position them differently and move them around.

Here I have opened the audio adjustments tab. I changed the volume of the video and sound tracks through this as well as altering fade settings to make the sounds fade out and in in a more subtle way.
 

Here I had opened the clip adjustments tab. I could change the duration of the clip here as well as stabilise the shot to make it appear steadier.

Here I had opened the effect tab within the clip adjustment menu. We added the dream effect to a lot of our shots which helped to improve the lighting and the look of the shots.

After completing all this editing to our production it was time to export the movie and burn it to DVD and upload it to YouTube in order to put on our blogs. Before we did this we added some non-diegetic sound which helped to build tension. I learned that subtle sounds worked best as they helped to build tension subconsciously rather than the audience having to pay too much attention to them. High pitched sounds also helped to build the tension the greatest. After adding this we exported the movie through iMovie then imported it into iDVD to make the project and create the DVD. Then we burned the DVD complete with titles and credits. This was something new as I had never burned a DVD on a Mac before so I learned something new.

I also learned how to upload videos to YouTube and create and post to an effective blog during this project as this was the required place to put all the evidence of our research and planning as well as our preliminary task. The blog was important as it gave me somewhere to keep all my research and planning together as well as a quick and easy way to find my work. The advantage of Blogger is that there are a variety of multimedia products that can be uploaded such as videos, sound files and images. I learned how to upload these things and by doing this ensured that my project looked good as well as ensuring that all the important information was present.

 

 

Evaluation - Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

     

Before we made our thriller opening and all the research and planning to go with it we did a preliminary task. This task allowed us to experiment with the cameras and see which problems we may come across as well as to learn all the rules of video production such as the 180 degree rule. As well as this it allowed us to experiment with the editing software available on the Macs through iMovie and see what may look good for our full production. I feel that I have developed a lot from filming the preliminary task to the end of our full production. I have gained a lot of skills and knowledge about the different effects and ways of filming. There are also a lot of rules to filming that I have learned since the preliminary task. Some of these are the 180 degree rule, continuity, match on action and shot reverse shot. These are all really important and I have learned this during the creation of this production. This is because using them effectively can help to build tension and by not using them you could leave the audience confused and therefore the film wouldn’t be as successful.

 

 

Overall our preliminary task was very proficient but it did have some shortcomings. One of the main shortcomings was the continuity of it as there were a couple of little errors in the preliminary. We also had a range of shots throughout the preliminary film clip but there were still a few more that we could have used such as an establishing shot or an extreme close up and if we had used them it could have made our clip a little more interesting and could have helped to build the tension a bit more due to focusing on important objects and setting the scene better. When filming our full production we tried to correct these small but noticeable errors by referring to our plans more and being aware of what we did wrong during our preliminary and being careful not to make the same mistakes. I think we have done this well and managed to build upon them to create a successful movie clip. The composition and framing of our shots was effective as they clearly showed the most important objects and parts at all. We managed to build on these good points from our preliminary and continued to use these strengths. Our preliminary video and our production are below to show the progression from one to the other.

During the progression from our preliminary task to the completion of our full production I feel that I have developed some specific skills when filming and editing our film. One of the skills that I have learned is that continuity is really important in movies and I have learned how to make sure that two shots continue from exactly the same point during filming (match on action). I have also learned that you need to make sure that as much as possible is exactly the same such as weather, hair and clothing. Another skill that I have learned is to follow the 180 degree rule. This is a really important rule as if the camera doesn’t follow the 180 degree rule the audience could get confused. During our production and the preliminary task we managed follow the 180 degree rule so throughout our production I have realised how important it is. Shot reverse-shot and match on action are two other good skills that I have learned how to do. By including these two things and trying to build on them as much as possible throughout the production some of the best results can be achieved such as being able to read character’s body language much easier and it can help to make the impact of the film very effective including building the tension and adding to the mystery for the audience.

Here are some screenshots comparing our preliminary task to our full production. They show how we have built on some of the strengths of our preliminary task but also fixed some mistakes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have learned throughout this production the importance of planning. Poor planning can ultimately lead to failure but a good plan could produce a really good movie. Although our preliminary task had some planning it didn’t have nearly as much as our full production did. Because we did so much research and planning for our full production we managed to include some of the best effects and most liked audience effects to our film. We mapped out everything from the genre of film we were going to make to which shots we were going to include and the costumes. Storyboards and shotlists were also really important as they meant that we knew exactly which shots we needed and which angle they needed to be taken from. This was really useful and saved us a lot of work and panic on the day of filming as we knew exactly what we needed to get in order to produce our movie opening.

Overall I think our thriller opening is quite successful. We have included many different shot types include close ups, extreme close ups, medium shots and shot reverse shot including some more complicated shots such as a panning shot. I think that there could definitely be some room for improvement if we had more time and better equipment but currently the opening sets out to do what it needs to do which is to provide an opening to a film providing mystery and some tension to help build on the genre we chose. I think that if we had some more time then we could make more use of lighting and possible create some of our own non-diegetic sounds which would have sounded more realistic than some of those that we found on the internet and added to our movie opening. 
 

Our Final Movie Opening

Shot List

Scene #	Shot	Location	Shot Description	Dialogue	Actors	Props	Notes
#1	1	Stream	Fades into a person walking down next to a stream and stands over it, fades to black	None	Ryan and Callum		None
#1	2	Bridge	Fades from a black screen into a shot of person walking around bridge	None	Ryan and Callum	Hat	None
#1	3	Next to stream	On floor name and candidate number amongst leaves	None	Ryan and Callum	Paper	None
#1	4	Stream	Person kneels down to stream and splashes his face	None	Ryan and Callum		None
#1	5	Stream	Splashes face with water fades to black	None	Ryan and Callum
#1	6	Bridge	Starts off black with camera under bag, bag taken off as if taken off a person’s head, possibly to see a person in front of them, fades to black	None	Ryan and Callum	Bag	None
#1	7	Stream	On floor name and candidate number amongst leaves	None	Ryan and Callum	Paper	None
#1	8	Bridge	Man tied to chair, low angle looking up at him	None	Ryan and Callum	Chair, Rope	None
#1	9	Bridge	Goes to side view, see him getting punched	None	Ryan and Callum		None
#1	10	Bridge	As soon as he gets hit flashes white	None	Ryan and Callum		None
#1	11	Stream	On floor a candidate name in flames	None	Ryan and Callum	Paper	None
#1	12	Stream	Close up on his eyes then fades to black	None	Ryan and Callum		None
#1	13	Bridge	You see him tied to the chair but on the floor then fades back to the present	None	Ryan and Callum	Rope, Chair	None
#1	14	Stream	He’s washing his hands that have blood on them from where he was tied up, then fades to black	None	Ryan and Callum		None
#1	15	Bridge	A close up of his hands tied to the chair and he manages to slip a sharp object out of his sleeve	None	Ryan and Callum	Rope, Glass	None
#1	16	Stream	Back to the sink where you see sharp object on the sink with blood on it	None	Ryan and Callum	Sink, Glass	None
#1	17	Bridge	You see the chair on the floor and the rope that bound the man to the chair next to the chair	None	Ryan and Callum	Rope, Chair	None
#1	18	Bridge	Pans to see an arm with a watch on it fades to black	None	Ryan and Callum		None
#1	19	Stream	You see the man putting the watch on his arm	None	Ryan and Callum	Watch	None
#1	20	Stream	Cut away shot of environment	None	Ryan and Callum		None
#1	21	Stream	Glimpse of a man standing next to stream	None	Ryan and Callum		None
#1	22	Stream	Cut away shot of environment	None	Ryan and Callum		None
#1	23	Bridge	Close up of a gun	None	Ryan and Callum	Gun	None
#1	24	Stream	Close up of the bounds cut	None	Ryan and Callum		None