Focus group

This is our focus group, we selected teenagers two of which do not work and two that do, two that drive, and two that don't. We done this on purpose because we believe that people sometimes choose to not see a thriller film because of their way of getting to the cinema. We also wanted to see the different views between people that work and people that don't. This is a brief few questions that we asked because these were the only questions we felt that had to be done in primary research, any other questions we had could be researched.

Group discussion of ideas

<                                      

 This is Jack pitching ideas to us whilst the rest of the group contributed and wrote down other ideas they got from this task.

Questionaires

Here are two sample questionaires that we made for the research. One from a teenager and one from a working adult.

Assigning jobs

Just before we started the process of completing our blogs we thought that it was necessary to organise ourselves. So we all met and agreed on certain jobs for us to all get on with. 

Target Audience

BBFC

BBFC ratings

Here are the available age ratings that are commonly asociated with all types of movies. We analysed the type of film that we are going to make and thoughroly thought about what age rating we should give it, we thought about other similar thriller films and looked at the ratings that they were given and applied it to our thriller movie opening. We rated it a 15 because uf the graphics we would imagine it to include, alongside the props and language. Also teenagers of 15 upwards are the main group of people that attend the cinema on a regular basis, therefore we deemed sales to be high.

 

Zombieland title sequence

Inception title sequence

godzilla analysis

Media Godzilla

Cape Fear Analysis

The Woman in Black analysis

Year 13 talk/advice

Year 13 Media Talk Blog

Mood Board

Mood board

What is a thriller?

Pre-lim; Post production

Post production

During the post-production we cut the footage we had taken during production. Where we had recorded extra footage at the start and end of the action we had to cut each clip till the time where we wanted that action to start and end at. When we cut the end of the action we had edit the clip so that it would smoothly run into the next clip.  We did this in chronological order so that we knew how the clip before would end and how we could start off the next one. Using this we were able to cut the start of each of the following clips so that it flows with the ending of the previous one. As we did this we added each edited clip on to the video creator splice. Using this app we were able to add each clip on the end of the others, this way we could see how smooth our cuts were. When we weren’t satisfied we would go back to our edited clips and make changes according to what we had seen in splice. This allowed us to make any changes to things that we weren’t happy with and smooth out our edits and allow the interchanging transitions to flow. Once we were happy with our little clip we would add the next clip on the end and repeat the same process of viewing the transitions reediting the clip and then replacing it with the one we hadn’t edited. As we moved further through the footage we asked others opinions on our edited prelim and took a mental note on the areas we needed to smooth out. After a while it became a repetitive process of watching and reediting clip after clip in attempt to get a smooth final piece. Once we had completed our prelim footage, we went back to the people we had asked previously for their opinions on the final clip and again made any final changes that we needed to until we were happy with what we had.

In our opinion if we were to reshoot and edit we would have experimented with more shots and angles so that we had extra footage to mess around with and give us a smooth flowing prelim.

Pre-lim; Production

Production

For the filming of our prelim we had to consider a number of ways to film the scenes in order to make them look professional. We had to think of ways to get the camera to stay steady during the filming to make the prelim look realistic and to also get used to the way that we will have to film our actual thriller movie opening.

The production of our preliminary was completed fairly quick, once we had figured out the different types of ways that we would get different angle shots with them still looking professional, we got on with the task and was much quicker and easier than expected. However we did face some problems, for example we had a shot of a person opening a door showing only their hand, followed by the next shot of the same person walking through the door, when we watched the scene through, the door didn’t open at the same time and didn’t seem to flow, therefore we re-shot these scenes in order for it to look much more realistic.

For the filming we used over the shoulder shots, 180 degree rule, satellite view, wide shots and extreme close ups, therefore we had to think of ways to keep the camera steady in all of these shots in order for them to look as real as possible. For most of the shots we used a steady table and a number of books to get to the exact level of the persons shoulder. The camera was stuck to the books by the use of blu-tack in order for it to stay still and not shake by holding it by hand, leaving the camera to hold itself felt more reliable that holding it ourselves. There was an exception of using this process with one of the shots that we used, the satellite shot, where we filmed two of the characters from above their heads. We done this to show the character who dominated the scene by taking us most of the table space.

We believe that use of the camera with the making of the preliminary work has made us more confident and used to using the camera when it comes to making our actual thriller movie opening, we now know how to steadily use the camera to get clear, clean shots. However the only thing that I think we could use when filming the actual opening is a selfie stick. We think this because when we were filming the satellite view we had to re-shoot a few times due to shaking of the hand. A selfie stick will allow us to film from the ground but instead extending the length of the stick to the angle we need it to go to. I believe that this will prevent shaking as we aren’t being put into an awkward body stance whilst trying to film.   

 

Pre-lim; pre-production

Prelim.

Pre- Production

  To start off on our coursework, we were told to create a short prelim as a basic introduction for what it is like filming and editing a scene. It only had to be 30 seconds- 1 minute long so we had a chance to play around with different camera techniques and angles and how to edit the video. The task of the prelim was to film a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down opposite another character, where the two characters will start a couple of lines of dialogue. The task had to demonstrate match on action, which basically means we have to add continuity to the scene so that it flows nicely from one part to another. Shot/reverse shot, which is used when the two characters are talking to each other and when they say a line, the camera will go between them and show their faces while they are saying there individual lines. Also the 180 degree rule, which is if the camera is showing a conversation between two people, the camera has to stay within the 180 degree line on one side of the two people talking, so we don’t distort the footage and change the perception of the audience on the footage, we were told to use smartphones to record as they are much easier to use, and we wouldn’t need a better camera for a 1 minute video. To edit the video, we were told to use an app called Splice.

To start off, we watched the prelims from other year groups who are doing the same coursework as us, and got a brief look at what we had to do and ideas for it. When we first started planning we made a storyboard on each of the main parts of the prelim, so we decided to make it work based, like one person is going into another room to help the other person out with homework, which means we decided to have one person walking down a corridor, with the camera focusing on the persons legs, walking down the corridor. We decided to create the prelim so that the camera does not show the first persons face, until he is sitting down facing the other person, to create an effect which would intensify the situation, although it sounds stupid for a harmless prelim that is not meant to be a thriller, we just did this to try and see if it worked and whether or not we could perhaps use this idea in our final piece.

We figured out the different camera angles we would use while the two characters were talking like the shot reverse shot, a two shot, and a viewpoint shot from above, this meant that we could get a good idea on how we could record scenes in the future using all these camera angles. When we had figured out what we were going to do in the storyboard, we went out to try and find a good place to record. When we were walking around the school, we found a small room, in a quieter area of our school and decided to record here, so we started to plan around the room, like what we were going to use as props and how we are going to film, after we sorted that out, we started filming.

 

 

Introduction