Evaluation for thriller productions

For my Media Coursework I had to create an opening sequence for a thriller film. The sequence had to be about 2 minutes long. Before I started filming I had to create a blog which showed research and the process of creating the sequence. My thriller film is about a pair of twin sisters and one of them gets a boyfriend but the boyfriend didn’t know that his girlfriend had a twin sister and finds out at dinner. He went to a cafe thinking he was out with his girlfriend but instead he was with his girlfriend’s twin sister. As they were leaving the cafe his girlfriend saw him and her sister together. Revenge is the plan.

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

While creating my thriller I had to make sure that the ideas reflected real thrillers. To help me with this I researched about Thriller Conventions. All together there are twelve conventions. The thriller conventions show the some elements which allow a thriller to be a thriller. My thriller is aimed between certificates age 15 to 18. The characters that have been filmed in the sequence are between the age group.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media filming represents mainly 1 social group, teenagers. The sequence shows the trouble in relationships that teenagers have nowadays and how much trouble it can cause between family and friends.

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

There are lots of different institutions which have developed throughout the years. The media institutions that may distribute my product would be cinema’s, blue ray and DVD’s because the cinema it would be worldwide bigger picture and sound on DVD and blue ray the same would apply. With it in the cinema the more people that go and watch it the more ratings it will get. Viral marketing is another mean of distributing because people pass on the message about the film through Internet, e-mail or word and mouth.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for the media product would be mostly teenagers because of the genre of the film. the genre of the sequence is a love thriller, so i think teenagers would be alot more interested to see it rather than adults.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract my audience I had to use a range of different sounds, transitions and video effects to create my thriller. I was able to keep the audience interested and get them thinking of what is going to happen next. The choice of music was good because of the type of scenes that was film because it starts off with nice gentle music then the music changes because the mood in the sequence changes. This makes the audiences tension build.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During this project i have learnt how to use an imac computer. How to cut and paste bits from a sequence. how to import videos from the camera and while importing make sure you import the clips as short a possible so it is easier to edit. I have also learnt how to use the tripod at different angles. Overall i enjoyed using the imac computers.

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

From the preliminary exercise it helped me understand different camera views that would work and how the system works. Learning how to cut and paste scenes, estimate jumps between different shots and replacing them with different transactions.

Finished Thriller

Today the music was added onto our thriller. We had some problems because at the moment our thriller was about three minutes long and its only supposed to be 2 minutes long. So Houda completed the editing down to just over 2 minutes.

Houda and Alma found two sets of music from a different website called freeplaymusic.com. This website had many different uncopywrited music. The seqence isn't scary from the begging there are some happy scenes, so us having scary music all the way through would make the sequence contrapuntal it would be weird. Then they found a second song to put near the end of the sequence to help show the anger of the twin sister. They joined the two different sounds making a sound bridge.

Moby Gratis music

Monday 23rd April.
The Moby Gratis music which Houda downloaded still hasn't arrived. It said it would take about 5 working days but it has been over 2 weeks and still haven't recieved nothing.

Finished Filming

On Tuesday 28th April, Houda Vernege-Fanus and Ardit Paskij added the scene we recorded on Monday 27th April at Alma's house. Which meant that the thriller film was nearly finished although the Moby Gratis music still hasn't arrived. This is all due in on the 1st May.

More Editing

Monday 27th April, Houda continued to edit the thriller. She was putting in transactions between each scene to make the thriller look more proffessional but she was a bit concerned that the thriller would over run.

While Houda was editing, me (Eustacia Gaston-Monerville), Alma Futu and Ardit (the actors and also group members) went to Alma's house to film the missing scene for our thriller.

Editing

Thursday 23rd April me(Eustacia Gaston-Monerville) one of the group members Houda Vernege-Fanus started editing what we had so far. It was quite simple because we had practise with the prelimenary exercise. We had different variety of shots. There was also some parts we had to cut down because it was too long.

More Filming

On the 21st me and my group did more filming. We went to romford liberty and then to Alma Futu's house to film the last parts.

We filming at Alma's house one of the group members wanted to look over the filming we had done, but when they had finished they didn't stop it at the right part so one of the bits that got filmed got recorded over. We had to re-film that part another day.

Filming

On 20th April during our media lesson. We filmed in all the same locations which were:

• Outside by the flats
• In the school canteen
• Near the school lockers

We finished the first half of the filming all within that lesson.

Thriller Name

Friday 27th we decided the name of our thriller is.......

Problems with Filming

On the 3rd of April we broke up for easter. The plan was for us to take the camera out during half term for us to film the rest of the scenes. Unfortunately one of the group members didn't take out the camera, so it wasn't possible for us to do the filming during the holiday.

On the 20th of April we got back to school and were intending to carry on with filming, but there was a problem, the group member that was acting in the film had changed their hairstyle and we had alreally filmed that member with another hair style before half term. The teacher had warned us about being continuous. Us filming the person with a different hair style would make the film look odd and because of the new hair style this meant we had to re-film everything again.

Continued Filming

On Friday the 3 rd April we carried on filming. The next scenes we filmed was at Alma's house.

Started Filming

On the 23rd March we started filming the begining seqence of or thriller.

We filmed:

• In School near the lockers
• In the school Canteen
• Outside near some flats

The Animatic

The animatic is finished. The animatic shows what we are going to be filming.

Below is the Animatic, created by Houda Vernege-Fanus and edited by Ardit Paskij.

Filming and Problems

On Saturday the 28th March. Me and my group decided to do some filming in Romford. We filmed Alma as the sneeky twin sister going out with her sisters boyfriend but her twin(the girlfriend)sees her boyfreind(Ardit)with her sister as they are walking through the mall from the cafe. The boyfreind(Ardit) doesn't know that he is dating her twin sister.

This was not the original plan. The plan was for the sneeky twin sister to meet ardit(the boyfriend) at the cinema. We got told that we couldn't film there because we needed to get permision from the owner of the premises first.

We changed our location of filming to the liberty in Romford. We were approched by a member of staff at the liberty who then contacted the manager for us to ask permission to use the premises. The manager agreed as long as we didn't get the logos for the stores in our film.

Camera Shots used:

• Long Shot
• Point of view
• Pan shot
• Mid shot

Finished Editing Preliminary Exercise

On Tuesday the 10th March we finished editing our preliminary exercise. As said previously we did have some difficulties with editing. The difficulties we had, was knowing where to cut parts of film that we did not want. We eventually discovered that in order to trim the film we had to divide it into clips; this was so it made it easier to trim parts instead of having the whole video to edit at once. Then we came to a clip were we needed to cut a part of the video right in the middle, which was very tricky. This was because we did not want to cut bits of that we needed by accident, in some parts we only needed mm of it trimmed.We found out how to trim parts in the end. By spliting the clips up it made it easier for us to trim parts off so the part that needed triming in the middle ended up being at the beginning of one clip and at the end of the next. So all we had to do was trim the beginning and the end , which made it much more easier.. We done this and after we had finished it looked good.

Here is our preliminary exercise.

Girl walking down the corridor-Alma Futu

Girl in the classroom-Houda Vernege-Fanus

Filmed by Ardit Paskij and directed by Eustacia Gaston-Monerville

Location- Robert Clack School

Parr Productions-Cast and Crew

Writer-Houda Vernege-Fanus
Director-Eustacia Gaston-Monerville
Film Director-Ardit Pashkij
Producers- All group members
Cast-Alma Futu and Houda Vernege-Fanus +extras

Group meeting-On final idea

On Monday the 4th March me and my group(Houda Vernege-Fanus, Alma Futu and Ardit Pashkij) had a meeting and decided to go with the second idea, about the twin sisters.

These are some of the props that we are intending to use:

Preliminary Exercise

Our task involved filming snd editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he exchanges a couple of line's.The exercise had to demonstrate:

• Continuity
• Match on action
• Shot /reverse shot
• The 180-degree rule

Me and my group decided to film in our study room in the school and the character's who were going to exchange a couple of line's were Houda and Alma. Stacie(me) and Ardit were doing the filming and directing.

Name for our Production

Houda came up with the production name which is....

Parr Productions

Possible Settings

These are some of the settings I thought we could film in. I already know that the setting will be in school or at a house we just haven't decided were in school.

• Classroom
• Corridors
• Hall
• House
• On a street
• Bedroom
• Shower
  

Another idea

Our group came up with another idea. This idea was two have a boy and a girl who met each other at the the beginning of a college year and they become a couple. After a few months, the girl thinks that it is now time for her boyfriend to meet her parents. While they are having dinner at her parent’s house, the girl’s twin walks in, her boyfriend looks in shock. This confuses things between the couple because the boyfriend could not tell who was who and the twin was enjoying the fact that she was playing around with her sister’s boyfriend. The boyfriend, one day thought he might take his girlfriend out to dinner one day to make up for all the fuss, not knowing that she was on a work experience and that her twin was about take her place. While at dinner the boys real girlfriend walks past the restaurant were her boyfriend and her twin are about to kiss. Furious she goes home and waits for them to get home so she could.....

The different between a horror and a thriller film

HORROR

In film, the horror genre is characterized by the attempt to make the viewer experience fright, fear , terror , disgust or horror. Its plots often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage, sometimes of supernatural origin, into the mundane world.Some of the most common elements include vampires , zombies (and other forms of resurrected corpses), werewolves, ancient curses, ghosts, demons and/or demonic possession , Satanism, evil children, 'slasher villains', vicious animals, inanimate objects brought to life by black magic or twisted science, haunted houses, cannibals, and malicious extraterrestrials. The serial killer movie is sometimes regarded as part of the horror genre.

THRILLER

The thriller is a broad genre of literature, film, and television that includes numerous, often-overlapping sub-genres. Thrillers are typically characterized by fast pacing, frequent action scenes, and plots in which a small number of resourceful heroes must thwart, often violently, the plans of more-powerful and better-equipped villains. Thrillers typically emphasize plot over character development, and make extensive use of literary devices such as suspense, red herrings, and cliffhangers. They often take place wholly or partly in exotic settings such as foreign cities, deserts, the polar regions, or the high seas.

An Idea for our 2 min thriller

Me and my group (Houda,Alma and Ardit) came up up with our 1st idea for our thriller.

Setting- In school (classroom, corridors)Characters- Geeky girl, science teacher and popular kids.

The story is based around a girl in her teens, who has been a geek all her life. Shes not very much liked by the popular kids.But she does have a secret admirer, who is her science teacher but the audience does not know this. One day she finishes school but decides to then go on and do some more work even after ll the other kids are alone, but she does not know that she is being watched (by her science teacher). While she is doing her work she hears strange noises but doesnt take notice. Finally she finishes and it doesnt occur to her that it has got really dark outside. While shes walking down the corridor the lights turn off onne by one catching up with her. She starts to walk faster as she can hear footsteps but dares not to turn around, while still runing she hears a door slam and the footsteps stop, and so does she. She turns around slowly to find...

Types of Thrillers

Action Thrillers

Crime Thrillers

Comedy Thrillers

Saw 2- Analysis

In this trialer for Saw 2 is shows alot of red which gives you an idea that there is going to be blood or danger involved. The fast pictures of bits in the film looks a bit like flicking and gets the audience wanting to see whats gonna happen the film. There is alot of screaming in the trailer which makes people want to see it in the theatres to see who and why are they screaming.

Alfred Hitchcock-Shadow of a doubt

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was a British filmmaker and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in his native United Kingdom in both silent films and talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood and in 1956 became an Amerrican Citizen, retaining his British citizenship.
Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. He remains one of the best-known and most popular filmmakers of all time.He made his first film in 1920. He made is first sound film in 1928. His first film got an award in 1940. Alfred is known as the master of suspence and a brillaint film maker.

This is a Alfred Hitchcock film I watched in class, its called Shadow of a Dought. I only watched the first 7 mins and 20 secs. Below is part 1.





Shadow of a Doubt 1943

• At first we people dancing at a ball, very formal clothing and upperclass look.
• Then we get a dissolve to a rural place, somewhere outside in town, we see a river, bridge, alot of junk everywhere ,burnt cars ect .Its a polluted place.
• After we get long shot of a street showing normal middle class or even working class children playing outside houses.
• Then we get a close of one of the windows.
• Then we go through the window to seea a man laying down on a bed. He looks dead but then we are mistaken when he starts to play with his cigar.
• Close ups of his money on the floor and drink shows that he is quiet rich but isint bothered about it.
• The landlord then comes into his room and talks to him. After that she draws the bilnds down and at the same we see a close up of the man closing his eyes kind of like a graphic match. But however what I also noticed is once the bilnd is drawn we see him get up. This shows that he is actice in the dark. it is here were the audience can question if he is a protagonist or a antagonist.

Analysis of Title Sequence in Se7en

Begins in quiet. You can hear a slow ticking like a clock. The picture starts to flicker and flash which makes the audience unsettled. The sounds increase which now sounds like scatching and screaming. there are spashes of red which looks like blood. The red signifies danger. There are pictures of people in which the character of the film crosses out their eyes with a black marker.

Introduction

My name is Eustacia Gaston-Monerville. I'm working in a group with Houda,Alma and Ardit. We are going to be creating a 2 min opening sequence for a thriller film.

Thriller Conventions

A crime at the core of the narrative (often murder, but not necessarily).
A complex narrative structure, with false paths and resolutions.
A narrative pattern of establising enigmas which the viewer expects to be resolved.
A protagonist is the central charcter in a film.A protagonist who is systematically dis-enpowered and drawn into a complex web of intrigue by the antagonist.
Extraordinary events happening in ordinary situations.
Themes of identity
Themes of mirroring
Themes of voveurism
Protagonist with a "flow" which is exploited by the antagonist.
Titles often reflect an aspect of the pro/antagonist's psychological state.
There is often a scene near the end of the film in which the protagonist is in peril.
Mise en scene which echoes/mirrors the protagonist's plight.