Final Evaluation

Group Evaluation

As a group we came up with various ideas in the way we wanted to present our evaluation, we came up with PowerPoint presentations, live commentary, question and answer sessions, but we believed that the best choice for our group would be one that is engaging and not overloading with too many words. So we decided to create our evaluation on Final Cut Express, by using this software we are going to have a split screen where on one side will be the image/footage of our opening thriller sequence and the other will have written commentary to answer the evaluation questions thoroughly. By doing this we hope to engage and entertain the viewer without making them feel bored and want to stop watching. This will hopefully come across as there is a minimum amount of writing to take in without an excess to read, accompanying this are going to be many visual examples and sounds from the beginning process, to production through to the actual opening sequence itself. Overall allowing our evaluation to be interesting and easy on the eye without making it dull and tiresome.

Individual Evaluation

Thriller Opening Sequence Evaluation

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

Throughout our thriller opening sequence there are many generic conventions as well as incorporating challenges to type of conventions. We created a soundtrack on GarageBand that included many generic conventions, such as having the music low key and unsettling. We played many different sounds to find the best suiting ones for our opening sequence, but the ones we found most appropriate were sounds that gave us the feeling of being dark and gloomy. When we listened to a sound effect and felt emotion towards it as you would when watching a thriller movie, we decided it could be a perfect match. This, we believe, makes it into a generic convention as the attributes we have used are matching to what a thriller should be like. Deciding to convert our thriller into black and white gave the opening sequence a sense of immorality and gave the feeling of a dark and tense movie, therefore conforming to generic conventions. As we also slowed down the speed at some points during the opening sequence, such as the over the shoulder shot of the main character walking down the pathway, we believe it to add a sense of discomfort and weariness for the audience watching. This also creates a generic convention. Using camerawork such as POV and high angle shots convey to the audience what the main character is experiencing and showing them as weak and vulnerable by looking down onto them, therefore she is being portrayed as easy to manipulate and influence, emphasising the use of the mind. These different factors created enable the audience to recognize the sub-genre we have chosen to portray, psychological. For example, these type on conventions are portrayed throughout the movie The Woman in Black, there are many scenes during the thriller that convey the sense of vulnerability and suspense by using high angle shots.

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

The different social groups represented in our thriller were a gang of female youths and a young female worker. We took a very stereotypical route with the gang of youths, trying to embrace what many people’s perceptions of young people are. We filmed the youth’s scene from the main characters point of view to show her vulnerability and helplessness to the audience. By doing this it will show the youths to be the dominant, aggressive type, over shadowing the main character. Overall, conveying the youth’s to be a stereotypical archetype. The main character is shown to be walking home from work, as she is dressed in a classical work uniform it allows the audience to understand where she has been, maybe not what job she has but that she seems to have a highly profound job by the clothing she has on. This can be seen to challenge a woman’s stereotype as they are usually portrayed with a lower status, whereas she is shown with a high status. However, she is seen as vulnerable and weak through her body language. The different camera angles we used also helped to convey these emotions and characteristics, such as using high angle shots to show her as defenceless and passive. Overall portraying her with archetype and countertype stereotypical traits.

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

Metrodome is a small British company that distributes small movies. Through their microwave scheme they give small British films a chance to be made with a budget of £100,000 and 18 days to make it. For example, the movie Shifty as it is also a small scale British film that needs to use viral marketing to get their film across to the media market. I see this movie to be only as internet release as it’s a small scale film itself that no one will have heard of and we will not have much money to market the film so we need to get our film across to everyone cheap and make sure we attract them to watch our film. Having the money given to you to produce this thriller it will enable the film to have a chance to be made with sufficient funds from the company.

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

We anticipate our target audience to be within the ages of 15 to 19 with a split of both female and male genders, with there being slightly more female candidates than male. To find out our target audience we carried out primary and secondary market research. We asked many different people, from ages 15 to 50, male and female many questions relating with their personal life, such as what are your hobbies? And how old are you? This enables us to establish what kind of audience we were going to be aiming our thriller opening sequence to. This allowed us to match our opening sequence to appeal to the most likely potential viewers. Then we created the audience profile to finalise our actual potential audience and help us in the making of our thriller. We believe that as we have produced a psychological thriller, which engages the mind quite thoroughly it will appeal less to males as they would prefer a more action related thriller. This is not saying that all men would prefer an action thriller to a psychological, but that it’s the minority wanting to. A familiar thriller to our opening sequence “No Way Out” includes “Shutter Island” and “Black Swan”. As with Black Swan, it is mainly aimed at young females aged 15 to 30, yet with a high aim to males. This thriller is similar to ours with the consideration that it is all to do with the mind; however, it is very different as we have a murderer in our thriller whereas “Black Swan” doesn’t. “Black Swan” involves two young dancers who expand their rivalry into a twisted friendship, where one of the characters begins to get more in touch with her dark side- a recklessness that threatens to destroy her.

5.  How did you attract/address your audience?

Through our audience profile we finalised our audience to be of the age 17 and above, with a split of both male and female viewers. There are not any particular points in the opening sequence that would appeal to or particularly terrify a certain age or gender. We aimed to produce a beginning that wouldn’t be terrifying or disturbing but to set the scene for the audience, as the thriller continues we intended to use more frightening and startling shots to make the audience scared. The audience we would’ve aimed to terrify and appeal to, if able to produce the rest of the thriller, would be the majority of viewers, we didn’t want to pin point any specific age or gender as we want most people to have the chance to feel involved and drawn in, and appeal to the thriller, making more people have the enjoyment of watching a thriller movie. Camerawork we could’ve used to enable us to do this task to the best of our ability are high angle shots on the main character to show her as vulnerable, handheld POV shots to show the shakiness and the unsettledness of what the main character is feeling and going through. Maybe a few shots of short shot duration during a murder or a breakdown type scene to show the rush and intensity of the situation. All of these will help to convey a terrifying and bizarre narrative to our target audience. The audience are asked to put themselves into the main characters shoes, to see what she is seeing and what she is going through, this will aid viewers understanding if they can see from her POV and witness the events she is going through then they will understand and maybe feel empathy towards her, yet feel angry and terrified of her at the same time. This may leave viewers to feel more connected to the movie and understand what is going on rather than being completely oblivious and confused. All in all this can have a huge impact when it comes to building up the suspense. In the making of our opening sequence we used sound, mise-en-scene and editing to also keep our audience interested. By using our editing skills on Final Cut Express it allowed us to use many transitions such as a fade in to produce an opening sequence that didn’t entail the same boring cut all the way through, this made it much more interesting to watch so the audience will want to continue watching. Using sound, we created a soundtrack on GarageBand full of many different sound effects to create a realistic yet spooky backing track to match our sub-genre. By doing this is will aid viewers understanding and add emotion so the audience won’t get uninterested.

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

During the beginning process of using different technologies we used many technologies such as Final Cut Express, GarageBand, camera and more. As we started to use the different software’s and technologies we found it hard as we weren’t sure how to work it 100%, however as we got used to it, it became natural to us and we became much quicker at it. Whilst filming we had many problems, yet successes when it came down to using the camera equipment, some problems were that the actual camera lens itself had dirt on it that we couldn’t see when filming, but was clearly evident when we put it on Final Cut Express. This made the sequence look unprofessional and not clean and cut. We had to solve this by cleaning the lens thoroughly even if we hadn’t touched it, just to be 100% sure.  When we took the camera out to film, most of the time the camera was fully charged, but one time it had a low battery which could have been detrimental if the whole battery had gone whilst we were in the middle of filming. Luckily we had enough battery life to film the needed shots at that time, but next time we are going to check if it is charged thoroughly before filming, so we have the needed time to film and endure less panicking that we don’t have enough battery. We had many strengths whilst using the camera equipment, such as, when we needed to film a steady shot we used the tripod, and as we knew how to use it and how to connect the camera, foot, etc to the tripod it made it easier to function. Making the process much quicker as we had the knowledge of what to do, allowing us to have more time to focus on the actual filming itself rather than wasting time trying to figure out how to function the use of a tripod. Also, we made sure we had ALL the correct equipment with us before we left to film, such as a camera, tape, tripod. This helped us greatly; as we had everything we needed therefore less time was wasted. Whilst we were in the filming process we did have some problems such as not pressing the record button at the right time, which we had to resolve by being patient and directing each other better, allowing us to not leave out any valuable footage.

After the filming process we used editing software, including Final Cut Express, this enabled us to edit our filming so only the important, useful parts were used.  We learnt many different techniques involving the software, such as how to cut out particular parts we don’t want, add text into the sequence to make it look professional. Using Final Cut Express we also discovered how to change the speed and colour of the shots and many more. This all helped us to create a sequence to match the sub-genre we picked, which will help to portray a psychological thriller to out audience. This helped portray the mise-en-scene ideally as it allowed the location to look mysterious and spooky, as well as the costumes looking dull and the lighting very low key. All creating a perfect match to our sub-genre, psychological. Another software we used was GarageBand, this programme allowed us to create a soundtrack to match and compliment our thriller opening sequence. It had many songs, dialogue, ambient sounds and artificial sounds to choose from, giving us a wide variety to work with, helping us create the most suitable match for our opening sequence. There were some challenges with both software, such as having to get used to it before knowing where every single thing was to help create the perfect soundtrack. But after a while, as we got used to it, it became natural to us and we came more familiar with where everything was place, making us quicker and more efficient in using the software. Lastly, we used Photoshop in order to create a logo and a poster for our opening sequence, in order to do this our teacher gave us a lesson on which tools to use and how to use them effectively. This looked like a complex task, but as you got the hang of it, it began much simpler for us to use.

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

During the preliminary task we were quite weary and cautious with the equipment as we weren’t very fond of it and didn’t feel 100% comfortable using is, however. When doing the actual task we knew what to do and how to overcome any camera issues. This enabled us to feel more confident filming and editing as we had already practised on them before. I believe that our end product is a success of fulfilling the task as we worked hard in the research and planning tasks, filming it and editing. We also continued to do work in our own time, allowing us to get more done and have a continued knowledge.

We had many weeks to complete research and planning tasks to help us in the actual production of our thriller opening sequence. As a group we explored into the movies sub-genre; psychological and discovered the well known conventions to do with it and understood the challenges against that convention. We thoroughly planned every detail of what we wanted our actual opening sequence to be like, such as creating a storyboard, creating an animatic, researching and analysing many psychological opening sequences to understand and be able to help us recognise what one entails. We created a shot list of the different camera techniques we wanted to use in our opening sequence and put them in order to help us reach this task in an easy manner, as we have planned for it. Creating a storyboard where we sketched out each camera shot and wrote the different technique and location we were going to use, such as, close up of main character as she walks down the pathway helped us to film smoothly. This enable us to have a quick and easy start to begin filming as we knew what we wanted/needed to do therefore we got on with it without any queries to do with camera shots and movements. It also allowed us to film in the correct order instead of filming the ending, then the middle ect. This made it easier for us to edit as it was near enough straightforward as it ran from the beginning scenes to the ending scenes allowing us a simpler way of editing. As we created test shots and a preliminary task before our actual opening sequence it gave us the well needed experience to carry out the main task later on. Choosing of the shot types from the preliminary tasks to our actual task have improved as we were more aware of what shot types worked well and what didn’t. We also found out which camerawork techniques fitted in with a psychological thriller to be able to portray to the audience the theme we want to produce. During the preliminary task filming of some of our shots, such as over the shoulder we realised that we filmed it rather shaky and didn’t pay much attention to what was actually in the shot (cutting half of someone’s head out of the shot). This was intentional therefore it didn’t fit in very well with our particular scene. So when we went to film our actual thriller opening sequence we made sure we were aware of what was in the shot, to be able to produce the full effect and tried to be steadier with our hands to reduce the shakiness. Overall producing a better outcome.

FINAL PRODUCTION

How Our Rough Cut Helped Us

How our rough cut helped us in the production of our opening thriller sequence:

Before we finished editing our opening sequence we made a rough cut. This was to help get feedback and to see what we needed to change to make the opening seem like a thriller opening sequence. Using the feedback from the rough cut has helped us the editing of the opening sequence. One of the comments we got said that the first few seconds didn't flow properly so when we went back to start editing the rest of the sequence we changed the first few seconds so that it flowed properly.
We've learnt from producing the opening sequence that if we get a chance to film and edit again we will make sure that we leave plenty of time to film and edit because from doing the rough cut we saw that we didn't leave enough time to re-film any shots that we didn't like. As a group we should think more about the positioning of the camera and what the characters look like from the audiences perception. Getting feedback from our target audience (15) has made us more confident and helped us alot to be able to make our final opening sequence production.
After analysing our rough cut, we found that we should've left plenty of time before starting to record each shot and after recording each shot as some of the scenes we filmed had the ending or beginning cut off, therefore some of the shots were unable to convey the full story.

Editing Process

We each had individual ideas for when we got to the editing process of the opening sequence. Firstly for the sounds we decided that we needed to use ambient sounds so that the film would seem realistic.Before making the soundtrack we had to capture everything we had done and cut out all the bits that we didn't need. I think the majority of the shots were too bright when we were filming so to ensure that all the shots were the same colour and brightness we used a colour changer to make the whole sequence into black and white. This meant that we could film on two separate days and not have to depend on what the weather conditions were. Overall the whole editing process worked out really well and we used all the ambient sounds we could find to use at the beginning. But throughout the sequence we  have tense music that plays low as well as the main characters speech at the end.

Positivity Of Rough Cut Feeback

Doing a rough cut for the opening sequence was the best thing we could of done. Not only did it help use gain feedback from people to see what we needed to improve and what we had done well, to ensure our opening sequence showed the right atmosphere and suspense that we wanted to portray.We have used the feedback gained to help improve the final cut of the opening sequence and we knew we had done a good job when most of the people we asked said they would want to see the rest of the film to see what happens to the main character after the first 2 minutes of the film. They said it showed suspense and tension, which the character portrayed very well. 
Asking our target audience about the opening sequence was also good because they told us about what we could do to make sure the sequence was how we described it. When we film next time we need to ensure we have enough time to film and edit because after filming we saw when editing that we needed to film a few shots again or even change it completely so we need to leave enough time to allow us to do this.

Poster

As a group we decided that we would design a poster to go alongside our opening sequence as if it was a real film being released. We looked at a number of different posters that were in the same catergory as ours and came up with this idea:

Possible Title Ideas

As a group we sat down and thought very carefully about what we were going to call our thriller opening sequence. We wanted to create a title that reflect our theme and the actual narrative itself. So below is a list of our possible ideas:

• No Way Out                         
• Through The Phone
• GateWay
• Paranoid
• Anxiety
• Control Freak
• Captured
• Hidden

After thinking about all the above names, we went with Lauren's decision of No Way Out because we thought it went with our storyline that we had written. The title empahsises our narrative of not having anywhere to escape to as the characters are mentally traped by the antagonist which goes well with the psychological theme. When choosing a title for our thriller opening sequence we thought about how we were going to convey the storyline by just knowing the title itself. We wanted the title to be self explanatory to the audience BUT not giving anything crucial away, and that's why we decided to pick "No Way Out". Lauren and Lucy thought that picking this name would be easy to remember as its short and to the point, without seeming boring or dull. "No Way Out", we believe, is an appropriate title to echo the thrillers chilling narrative. It empahsises the main characters dilemma and how she is trapped in a situation so difficult and complex that she has NO way of escaping. Overall "No Way Out" fits in with the narrative we have created.

Rough Cut Feedback

After seeing the opening sequence would you want to see the rest of the film?

Yes

Is there a thriller atomsphere?

I thought that the whole background noises and the slow motion of the main character adds a very tense atomsphere and causes suspense.

How well do you think our location relates to our sub-genre?

The location helps with the realism of the film because there is people walking around and cars driving past. This helps us to see that it is just like any other person walking home but with a twist.

Do you think the sequence flows?

The sequence jumps a little bit from when the main character is walking up the path, when the camera is already facing the floor and then 2 seconds later the camera is focused on the floor again but with the characters fingers in the frame.

Is there anything you would do differently?

Personally, I would change that you are more focused on what the main character is seeing and not seeing the actual main character in view.

Thriller Poster Analysis

We are making our own thriller opening sequence we thought it would be best to get some ideas of the different posters related to many movies in order to help us understand and create a well suited poster to match our own thriller opening sequence.


This is a poster of a thriller movie called The Awakening. We had a look at this poster because it was similar to what we wanted our poster to look like.We had a look at all the little added names and sublines that are used. As you can see on the poster there is the age of what the film is promoted to and the film in fact has a motif after the title which helps create more suspense.Also we can see that the main title is alot bigger than the rest of the poster this makes it stand out more and bring the consumer in. The small print is mainly the production company, editors name and other people that have been involved in the making of the film.

Rough Cut

This is rough cut of the beginning of our opening sequence. We are going to ask a number of our target group to give us some feedback on the rough cut so when we come to edit the real opening sequence we will know what was good and what needs to be improved. Below is the questions we are going to ask our target group:

1. After seeing the opening sequence would you want to see the rest of the film?
2. Is there a thriller atomsphere?
3. How well do you think our location relates to our sub-genre?
4. Do you think the sequence flows?
5. Is there anything you would do differently?

Poster for Opening Sequence

As a group, we have decided that we would make a poster to promote our opening sequence just like a big named film production team would do for any other mainstream films. We are going to look at a few other posters that our similar to our opening sequence. We feel that if we create a poster to go along side our opening sequence it will help us get a better picture of what a real production team would do to promote a mainstream film. We want to create an authentic picture that looks realistic and like a professional has made the poster. We are thinking about using images from the filming in the poster so that the audience will see little bits of the film throughout and the title of the film will be on the front as the main attrition to the poster. Lauren and Lucy have been researching into different thriller posters such as The Awakening, Shutter Island and Dream House. These 3 posters all have thriller elements contrasting to create an eye catching, fearsome look. Having a poster that reflects the movies atmosphere will help aid potential viewers in knowing what type of movie they are going to watch.

The title of the movie is always clearly stated on the middle/bottom of the poster, the text is made to stand out from any other writing so its the first thing people would be drawn to. Having the text bold will give a clear indication of the movies nature, choosing a font to match our theme is very important as it needs to fit in with the genre and not look out of place.

Most posters include a subline to create awareness of the movies main intentions, this will give potential viewers to get a feel of what the movie is aiming to portray throughout the thriller. This will make sure viewers won't get a shock of what the movie is if they go and see it. The Awakening subline is "Sometimes dead does not mean gone", this gives the impression that the movie is not for the light hearted as it may contain blood, corpses and many unsitable images to those unfit to watch it.

Starting Editing Process

After filming on the 9th of March, we took the camera back to school on the 12th of March to capture everything that we had filmed. We begun editing on the 13th of March because we wanted to ensure we had captured everything that we needed. This would mean that we would have plenty of time to re film any shots that we were not happy with. We decided to re film some shots on the 19th of March, this would mean that we will allow ourself a further two weeks to edit the whole opening sequence as well as a rough cut to receive feedback from. We will edit in most of our frees and in the rest of our media lessons. We have to also work around another group because we are having to share a MAC computer because the MAC computer that we assigned to, doesn't contain the right accessories and software that we need to edit our opening sequence.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Filming

Overall, As a group we feel that the filming for the opening sequence went quite well. Although when we first planned to we couldn't because the person that we original asked to be the main character couldn't do the times that we wanted to film. So because we were already behind schedule for filming, Lauren, a member of the group, stepped in as the main character so that we could get back up to speed with our schedule.
Strengths:

• We worked well as a group and listened to everything that everyone in the group had to say
• We also tried to very hard to follow our storyboard because we knew what shots we wanted to do but we had to change a few shots because they didn't look how we wanted them to when we actually got to the location

Weaknesses:

• Unfortunately, when we filmed the original shots for the opening sequence and went back to edit them, they didn't portray what we wanted them too, So Lauren and Lucy had to go back to the location to re-film the couple of shots again.
• Also Alice was ill for a number of days, so Lauren and Lucy had to do some of the editing without Alice being there to see what they had done. So when Alice comes back, it may put us more behind having to show Alice everything we have done.

Although we had so weaknesses, the strengths hoped us get through them. As a group we worked well to get through the weaknesses and hopefully produce a high quality opening sequence.

Soundtrack

We used a programme called GarageBand to make the soundtrack to our opening sequence. We spent a lot of time trying to find the right sounds and effects to enable psychological atmosphere. We decided to use a lot of noises like the sound of an owl and a dog barking to show the audience that we are outside and that there are things around the main character. We used a suspense sounding audio that will play throughout the opening sequence to add suspense and tension to the whole sequence. 

Choice Of Location

As soon as we decided what we wanted our opening sequence to represent, we knew straight away that we wanted to film somewhere that was a popular location and had the right features in it which would help with the atomsphere of our opening sequence.
Choosing the top of Batchelors Acre was so easy to choose from because behind where we were filming was in fact an old ceremony that had been used over 30 years ago but is now over grown, you can still see some other headstones. When we firsted started filming, you could tell that we were by a park because you could hear children laughing and adults chatting this also helped with the first couple of shots that we wanted to film because at added to the jumping of the main character.We also needed a black gate for the main character to walk through to get to the location of the last shot. Thankfully there was one right at the end of where we had filmed the beginning of the sequence. It was perfect for what we needed for our opening sequence and helped massively with adding a thriller atomsphere.As well as the above attributes to the choice of our location we also used it because:

• The popularity of the area
• The size and space of the area
• Good Atomsphere that we needed

Filming Schedule

We shot our opening sequence on the 9th of March, below is a detailed schedule of what happened on the day:
3:00: We left school after making sure we had all the equipment we needed to ensure we would have everything so that we could film.
3:30: We arrived at our location, and got ready to set up, also put all the props that we needed into place.
3:55: We begun to film the first shot, doing this shot a number of times because it was near a road and a number of people were walking in and out of the frame.
4:30: We were halfway through filming, we had to make sure we filmed a number of the shots so that we got the right shot that we wanted.
4:45: Had just started the last shot, we had to do this one about 10 times because the disruptions. Also the props that we had to use for this shot were not in the right place or didn't go where we thought would be good.
5:15: Finished Filming every shot that we had on our storyboard and began to pack up.
The whole afternoon/evening of filming was very successful although we had to change a couple of shots from what we had on our storyboard because when we got to the location the shot that we wanted to do just didn't look very good through the camera.

Obstacles & Disruptions during Filming

During filming, we had to think about obstacles and disruptions which would affect the filming of the opening. This would also cause are filming to slow down and maybe even mean us having to stop to move obstacles but with disruptions we would have to re-film that shot again and hope that it doesn't cause a disruption again.

Aeroplanes- Will possible be the main disruption that will affect the filming. The location that we have chosen to film at has very frequently amount of planes flying over. This causes the atomsphere to be noisy and the noise is a very overpowering noises which will maybe over ride the speech which will affect the continuity when editing the opening.To over come this discruption we made sure we filmed the shot that we needed a few times and tried to film inbetween the planes flying over.

General Public: The general public could also be an obstacle that we have to think about, because we can't stop them walking in and out of our shots, this is because they are free to walk where they want. We will have to make sure that when we film the shot, if we get someone in the background we will have to do the next couple of shots after that one quite because otherwise they will not be in the next shots. If they are not there this may cause confusion for the audience and will affect the continuity of the editing.We tried to deal with the disruptions and obstacles as well as we could but most of them made us filming longer than expected but it wasn't too bad as long as our opening sequence looks professional.

Individual Roles in Filming

During the filming process of the opening sequence of our thriller movie we all had different roles throughout to help create an easy way of producing our sequence without a lot of confusion. During the filming we found it best to share the roles among us where we could all have a go at the different jobs involved when making an opening sequence.
For example, we had to decide who was going to be filming the first shot and who would be acting in that shot, then who would film the second shot and who would act in that, etc.

Lauren was the main actor throughout the opening sequence, however she didn't just act during the process, and she was a main attribute when it came to filming and directing the actual sequence. Alice and Lucy took part in a minor but of acting in the middle of the opening sequence. We also had a huge part when it came to filming and directing, we tried out best to use our skills to try and achieve the best outcome.

As we all discussed and planned out what each of us were going to do before we went out to film our actual production, this enabled us to get on with what we had to do in a quick, yet structured way. All in all it allowed us a suitable amount of time to film what we wanted, when we wanted. Having done this it helps us to produce a high quality opening sequence.