First draft/Evaluation

First Draft/Evaluation
With the first draft to our final thriller, we found that it wasn't very good. We didn't connect some of the scenes, so they will not make sense. E.g. at 1:34, we can see the character 'Nortz' walking away angrily, but we are not shown why he is angry. Furthermore, the music that we chose doesn't fit in the genre of thrillers. It is rather informal and laid back, which is not the effect we are trying to give from our thriller. Furthermore, we forgot to give our student examination numbers, so the examiner would not be able to identify who made this film easily. Lastly, we did not include a title to our thriller, so it just begins and ends without telling us what this film would've been called.

 

Sound exercise

Sound exercise
Our sound exercise features a short film called Snitch, in which there is a drug deal being set up by me. During this drug deal, I call my friend who works for the police (Tino) to easily walk into the drug deal and take the money and the drugs, leaving the other two characters. (Leon, Gottfried)
Much of the film features diegetic sound, when I am on the phone setting up the drug deal. But as soon as the other character (Leon) comes on screen, non-diegetic sound begins as music plays. This music plays until he meets the other character (Gottfried) and diegetic sound begins again when they are talking. This diegetic sound is cut off with a comical non diegetic vinal disk rip. This kicks off more non-diegetic music, this time being that of a sad tone. The characters begin to talk again, and the non-diegetic music continues to play in the back ground just under the sounds of them speaking, this continues until the film comes to an end.

Evaluation Question 7

The 7th evaluation question is answered featuring a prezi powerpoint presentation.


http://prezi.com/a9xzcndibodt/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
If the embedded code doesn't work, use the link above.

Evaluation Question 6

For the 6th evaluation question, I used a website called padlet to produce it.


http://padlet.com/elijahjace1/jjpxq5r48rh2
If the embedded code doesn't work, use the link above.

Created with Padlet

Evaluation Question 5

The 5th of my evaluation question I used PowToon.

https://www.powtoon.com/show/dMtLuLvGPTV/evaluation-question-5/#/

If the embedded code doesn't work, use the link above.

Evaluation question 4

https://www.mindomo.com/mindmap/16543f23167f475885020e8b878c02d5
If the embedded link does not work, click the link above.

Make your own mind maps with Mindomo.

Evaluation Question 3

http://app.emaze.com/@ALRRLLTL/presentation-name

Evaluation Question 2

This particular evaluation question is unable for embedded links to this blog, so I just added the hyperlink that you can paste into your URL to open. The link is below.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l3Gsstn2Gx0kjMttS9t3q9iN0ERq3h58hLC8-PD_MVc/edit?usp=sharing

Evaluation question 1

Evaluation question 1:

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

The conventions of thrillers that feature in our film are changes in the angles of our shots, an antagonist and a possible protagonist, tense non-diegetic music, scenes of action. These particular conventions featured in our thriller because they were the ones we saw as appropriate to fit in our film.

In our thriller, I have found that it is quite difficult to apply any key media theories. One that I can apply, is the enigma code. Because our thriller starts with something that happens during the mid-point of the sequence, it leads the audience wondering how the characters got in to the particular place that they were in this scene. 

A real film that we could compare our thriller to is 50 cents “Get rich or die tryin’.” The reason that I am comparing our thriller to this is because of course that film is also a thriller. Not only that, but that film has similar theme to it. It is based in the streets about young black males in a similar situation to those in the film.

We developed our conventions by watching the film get rich or die tryin' before hand, and getting ideas from it. Our thriller conforms to most conventions of thrillers, as it features different components such as action scenes, and a red herring,being the fact that the film goes backward, and features what would be the mid-point of the film at the end. We have challenged small conventions of thrillers e.g. we do not feature any romance in our thrillers, nor do we feature any binary opposites as the characters in the film are all of similar genders and backgrounds.

Third production meeting

Third production meeting

On this day, this photo was taken before visiting my house for more filming. This particular production meeting wasn't found to be very successful as construction of the film did not go very well. We found ourselves improvising ideas as we needed the scene to be outside in the dark, so we just filmed anyway but with small changes in the script and the direction.

Film Screening/Audience Feedback

Audience feedback
With the screening for our finished thriller, we gathered a small group of people from our classroom and asked them to watch and give their opinion on it. Deja said she felt 'gripped' by it, and that the visuals were very well done, besides for a few obvious mistakes. Dara said that the editing was done at a high standard and that it is one of the best that he had seen from AS level students. And Markus said that our opening was "amazing", even better than what his group had produced.

Final piece Thriller - Resentment

Shooting Schedule

Our shooting schedule

Style of editing

Styles of editing
There are many different ways of editing a film, and transitioning between shots. The most popular ones tend to be the most simple types as they are seen as more professional.

Straight cuts
Straight cuts are the most popular form of transition. They are seen as invisible as one shot instantaneously changes to another with out a break in between. These types of cuts keep the scene realistic, and they don't break the viewers concentration.

Dissolves
Dissolve transitions are also very popular. They feature one scene fading out into another scene, and at the mid point both scenes can be seen together. Directors may decide to use to link characters or objects.

Fades
Fade transitions are when the shot gets darker or lighter of a scene. The scene will either get darker until the screen is completely black, or lighter until its completely white. These can either indicate passing of time or death of a character.

Wipes
Wipes are when a shot is pushed off the screen by another scene. Often these are pushed from left to right, to indicate a passing of time. And can be used to link two different locations with things happening at the same time.

Jump cut
A jump cut can be used to shorten the length of a long scene, but cutting out different parts without changing the scene or the camera shot. This breaks continuity and can be known as discontinuity. It can draw the audience attention because it appears that the scene has changed but it hasn't.

Graphic Match
Graphic matches are when the director uses a particular shaped item, and connects it to another scene with an in the same shape as the one in the first scene and uses a dissolve to link them together. This was made popular by Alfred Hitchcock in psycho during the shower scene.

Second production meeting

Second production meeting
Our second production meeting, we decided what the story line to the thriller opening would be. Also, we assigned each other each position in the planning of the film. I was given the job of creating the story board and the animatic for other blogs. Leon was given the location sheet which would have the location of each place that we filmed. Gottfried was given the treatment blog, and the shot list. Tino was given the costume and prop list.

Initial Ideas

Initial Ideas

In the beginning we came up with two ideas, both featuring Gottfried as the main character. The first idea that we came up with had the working title as "Asleep", the second being "Arrangement"

Asleep

The thriller opening entitled asleep featured a man put in a coma by one of his long term enemies. Whilst in this coma, the victim re-lives the horrible events that led up to him being in the coma, which featured the killing of his best friend. What he relives is in short quick flash backs, and by the end of it he wakes up, which signifies the end of the opening. 

Arrangement 

Arrangement features a popular local rapper that finds himself in trouble all of the time, and would have been killed earlier if not for his friend saving him from his enemies. After a party the rapper and his friend are discussing the rappers ways, and his friend asks him to change. The rapper doesnt like this, and gets angry at his friend, telling him to delete his number and get out of his life. The rapper instantly finds himself in trouble and without his friend there to help, he is on his own. 

We decided on "Arrangement" for our final idea because it seemed to be the most realistic one to be able to complete to a high standard with the given equipment and time that we had.

anamatic

Our final animatic.

 

Second day of Editing

Second day of filming
Today I began editing the second sequence of the thriller that we are producing. Me and the rest of the group were sitting together deciding which ones of our many shots we should use for each particular scene. This helps us come to a fair conclusion of which are the best. The editing is successful as this particular sequence is almost completed.

How to film a thriller

How to film a thriller 
In this example of a thriller, we can see good uses of camera shots and sounds to make a thriller out of nothing. The very first scene is of a wide shot of the main character walking.
This makes the actor look small and insignificant to the rest of the shot.






The second shot is a tracking shot, of close up distance, we can see a chest upwards shot of the actor.









A medium shot follows this, we the actor walking down the path way











The next scene is a POV shot of the actor walking into the cave. this builds up tension, makes the viewer feel like they're entering the building themselves

When the actor reaches the inside of the fort, we start hearing sinister non diegetic music playing. This increases the intensity of the scene and has the viewers on the edge of their seat.

At this point, we can see a POV shot of something unhuman, it is low and moving fast so we know that it is a danger to the actor, along with the intensifying music. 

When we have a close up of the actors face, we can tell that he has spotted the danger also, and is surprised. This is effective as the viewers will be having a similar facial expression.






The final shot we have is of another actors eye, this is an extreme close up. This is intimidating towards the viewer because we have no idea what is going to happen next, whilst the eye will have more understanding of what is happening.

First Day of filming

First day of filming
The first day of filming features a scene of a party inside my living room. We had a few friends come over and dance and act for us as if they were in a party to give it a more realistic effect. We found this to be successful because the shots are good, and they will be featured in the thriller.

Designing/making title sequence

Title sequence
Today we began to edit our studio ident for our thriller. Our studio ident features a shot of cars passing, and a person on a bike coming onto screen. The cars are sped up to move at 150%, then slowed down to 75%. This gives the ident professional look. After this, we see a flash of white and a person on a bike with the words "rider productions" written just about their head. All of the studio ident features shots done by me and my group.

Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task

Cheryl is the name of our preliminary task. It features us with a range of different editing techniques, featuring match on action, graphic matches and eye line matches.
Eye line match

The first of the editing techniques that we see is an eye line match. We see Gottfried looking at his watch, then the camera switch to the watch.



The effectiveness of this is that the people watching feel like they are apart of the acting, as we are able to see what the character is looking at.







Graphic Match
The next editing technique we use is a graphic match, the effectiveness of this is that the two shots are linked together and it continues the continuity.

180 Degree rule
Mistakenly, we broke the 180 degree rule, this led to our shot looking unprofessional. We tried to amend this by flipping the shot in Premiere Pro when was editing. This didn't work perfectly, but it left the shot looking tidier than before we flipped it

Overall, the positive elements of our film is that we managed to add in a lot of editing techniques successfully. To improve we should spend more time planning, and trying to get the shots done to our best ability rather than just completing it in the moment.

Finished story board

Complete story board

Today, I finished the story board for our thriller, I am very happy to have completed it.

Second Day of Fliming

Second Day of Filming
The second day of film we done was on Friday 20th March. We filmed the main part of our sequence outside of my house. This is slightly different to where we had planned to film on the location sheet, being Leons house. Even though the change of scenery, we were still able to complete our filming successfully.

The Birds

The Birds
The birds is an Alfred Hitchcock directed thriller featuring the actors Tippi Hendren, Rod Daniels, and Jessica Tandy. We see our main character Melanie Daniels, (played by Tippi Hendren) start off in a pet bird shop, where she first meets Mitch Brenner (Rod Daniels) who plays a practical joke on her. The pair clearly hit it off, and Melanie decides to continue the joke by driving 60 miles to drop off a pair of love birds to Mitch's younger sister as a birthday present. Whilst she is driving away from his mothers house on a speed boat, she is attacked by a seagull that leaves a deep cut on her forehead. The locals find this attack very odd.












The further we get into the movie, we start to see a rise in the number of birds attacking, and the severity of the attacks. We see a flock of crows attack the school children whilst they are trying to flee the area. Later, Melanie and Mitch find the local school teacher dead at her door step by what was clearly a bird attack. The final attack of birds was on Mitch's mothers house, where the birds violently and desperately tried to break in and attack everyone inside. They managed to avoid the attack, until Melanie walked into the room that the birds had managed to get into. She survived an attack, and the birds seized after that. They managed to leave the house surrounded by thousands without being attacked.

Mise-en scene

Mies-en scene
is the french term meaning "in the scene or frame." This would include: settings and props, costume and make up, facial expressions and body language, lighting and colour, positioning of characters and objects in frame.

Colour - denotation and connotation
With colours, we can see differences in the settings based on the blue/red scale. When we see an image with a red scale, we will usually make a link between red colours and danger and heat and blood, and blue colours with low temperature and gloom, foreshadowing bad things to happen.

Denotation is something with a literal meaning.
Connotation is the representation of something.

Past student thrillers

Past student thrillers
The past thrillers I have chosen to review are power cut, hidden, hunter, and the catalyst. These films range in terms of how well they have been produced.
Power cut
Out of the 4 examples of student thrillers given, I found power cut to be the worst produced. I think this because the mise-en scene wasn't good. The main settings of this film was in a classroom that was meant to be an office, but it was in a class room. in this class room there was posters made by younger students all over the walls which gave the film an unprofessional feel. Also, i found that the story line didn't make much sense. The same actor was playing 2 different parts, which made it more confusing as a viewer as you have to adjust yourself to be able to realise this and understand it properly.


  Hidden
even though i didn't enjoy this thriller opening, i found that it wasn't the worst one i had seen. a less impressive example of a thriller was the one called hidden. The mise-en scene for this one was also quite poor, as it was filmed outside at night without any particular lighting. Because of this we can't see a lot of whats going on in the opening. Also the first minute or so is one cut, which makes boring for the viewers.


Catalyst 
Catalyst is a better example of a thriller made by students, as it features scenes with good lighting, an interesting storyline. Also, there is a use of many different shots and angles, so we can see that the people who filmed this took time and put in effort. The story line makes sense also, as we can see an assassin murdering two people in order to obtain something.  The settings for the opening was also perfect for the it, featuring perfect lighting for all the scenes.


Hunter
I found hunter to be the best of all the given options, it featured a good story line, also with a good choice of setting. Because the chosen culprit in the film is a PE teacher, the school corridors and classroom it made sense. Also the use of non diegetic sound to create suspense when the inspector is looking for the PE teacher. Then when the inspector finally meets the teacher the non diegetic music is turned off and the only sound in the scene is the dialogue between them. After the conversation ends the music begins to play again and the inspector takes a turn at a corner where he encounters the PE teacher again. The PE hits the inspector over the head, but the screen darkens as they hit connects and we hear the sound of the bat hitting his head but don't see it.

Psycho

Psycho (1960)
Psycho is an Alfred Hitchcock directed thriller featuring actors Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh and Vera Miles. The film features a woman named Marion Crane, a beautiful blonde. She spends her lunch breaks with her lover Sam, who she finds eloping difficult because of the lack of money they have. During one of her shifts at work, she encounters a client with $40,000, which her boss entrusts her to put in the bank. She takes this as an opportunity to start a new life, so she runs away with the money. immediately her conscious begins to play games with her, as she starts to image conversations between her boss, the client she stole the money from and the police. Whilst on her run, she stops off at the Bates motel where she meets Norman Bates. Norman Bates appears to be slightly odd from the outset as she is very excitable and doesn't sort out her accommodation by the books. She over hears a conversation between him an his mother, and finds out that he is dominated by her character. Whilst speaking with Norman she notices a few odd things life stuffed birds, but over looks it as one of his hobbies. Marion gets comfortable in the hotel, and begins to regret taking the money, so she plans to take it back, she subtracts the amount of money she spent, on a piece of paper which she rips and throws in the bin. She then goes to take a shower, and whilst showering she notices a figure come into the room, and before she knows it the shower curtain is ripped open and a womanly figure is stabbing her. This is seen as a very significant scene in the thriller genre as people had never seen so much a terrifying and violent scene in film before.

Costume & Props

Character Name: Nortz
Costume: Stereotypical rapper Baggy jeans A cap Large T-shirt Red Jacket.	Props: Chain Mic
Character Name: Eeze
Costume: Assassination attempt    Black bally All black track suit Mask	Props: Guns
Character Name: Tino
Costume:  Party clothing Jeans Shirt	Props: gun

Location Sheet

Treatment

Treatment

Group Roles Cinematography: Elijah Smalling Mise-en-scene: Leon Macauley Sound: Tino Chimunye Editing: Gottfried Nortey

Title: [WORKING TITLE: Gott Fried Died Tryin’] Tag Line:

Synopsis:  Gottfried is a relatively infamous rapper with plenty of enemies. Whilst at a party he is shot by his arch nemesis, Tino. Fast forward, Elijah goes out to avenge Gottfried’s death and sees Tino, who just got out of prison.

Key Genre Conventions: Suspense Fast Paced Action Quick Cuts Tension Music Black and White Shots

Shot List

Risk Assessment

Production meeting

Production meeting
Today we had a production meeting in which we discussed the shots that we would be using in our thriller. My group features Leon, Tino, Gottfried and Me (top to bottom) We story boarded each scene of our Thriller opening, and gave each person their role in the group. I was given the responsibility of being the camera man, and director. Gottfried chose the role as our editor, whilst Tino and Leon chose to act in our film, and play parts of the camera man any time that I was acting in a scene.
We came up with multiple ideas for our thriller, and ended up choosing two that we thought were most achievable at a high standard with the time and equipment given. After coming down to two ideas we wittled it down to our final idea.
The first of our ideas called "Unconscious" featured our actor laying in a hospital bed, white room and in a coma. In this coma he has flash backs of how he ended up there, with him being attacked by his bestfriend who is jealous of him, and at the end of the flash back his eyes open and hes conscious again.
Our final idea named "Gott'fried Died Tryin'" featured our editor Gottfried as a rapper that attracts a lot of trouble, and does not know how to deal with the trouble hes faced with. This leads to him dissing another rapper in one of his songs, which is the final straw and he is shot dead. His best friend who was with him from the beginning before the fame, is distraught by his murder and sets out to get his revenge.