Thriller Evaluation
For our media coursework we was given a brief of producing a two-minute thriller opening.
Wikipedia Thriller Definition: Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more-powerful and better-equipped villains. Literary devices such as suspense, red herrings and cliffhangers are used extensively.
From watching different openings of films that convey thriller in different ways helped us decide what type of thriller we wanted to do. While watching other opening sequences it looked difficult to try some of the techniques of certain films, as we are not professionals. When we first got our brief my group members and myself had numerous ideas of what we could do, however when we watched Arlington road (1999) we started to have a clear understand of what we want our audience to see and feel. The first images you see in the opening of Arlington road are solorised shots of a neighbourhood in America. Unlike some of the other openings music was not used, the use of deep suspenseful sound gave it more of a thriller effect. Some shots where also blurred. We got some of these ideas and adapted it to our thriller. Our two-minute plot was a girl coming back from a night out, getting on a bus, going through an estate. While she is walking though the estate there is cross cuts of flashes that may happen. We decided the first shot would be out focused at first like Arlington Road at one point before she enters the estate there would be a pan shot of the area.
Again Similar to Arlington Road the cross cut scenes would be solorised and quick, to show it is not yet happening to prevent confusion in the audience, plus the sound would be creepy. We preferred t use sound rather then music like Arlington road because we think it is more effective. We used a loud string sound as the image established, then throughout the being while the girl was waiting for the bus and wanting was a low string sound that was used as a background and mostly diegetic sounds was used at this point like cars and footsteps as our film is a reality thriller. As soon as the girl reaches the alleyway the sound instantly increases in volume, the cross cut clips are diegetic to hear the scuffle and screams. When she gets to about mid way of the alley we add slow middle pitched notes of a piano to create a suspenseful feeling and while she enters the lift the piano played fast paced on one note to represent how everyone’s heartbeats should be in this stage including the actress. This is in slow motion to enhance the unexpected hand stopping the lift door, which then we used a loud thrilling sound that successfully made the audience jump and the deep base sound played throughout the two minutes quietly now played on its own when the title is shown. These elements are conventions of Thriller plus the lighting of our setting was red that connotes danger, we left the ending on a cliff hanger seeing that the cross cuts may be the future, past or just in the characters head but when she reaches the lift a hand stops the lift door from closing, which is when the title (Earlstoke Estate) is shown. This makes people want to know what happens next that builds ambiguity. Pulling the audience in like this is a common device used to keep audience engaged.
UK Film Council-private company limited by guarantee governed by a board of 15 directors and is funded through sources including The National Lottery.
Simular Producted fim: Bullet Boy (2004), This is england (200)
Possible Distributor Company would be:
Future Films- Future Films is a unique, integrated motion picture organisation that takes productions from pre-financing to post-production and beyond.
Similar films Production: Kidouthood (2006) and London to Brighton (2006).
Other company that can help:
Soho Film Lab- Do commercials to feature films, digital effects to broadcast drama and archive restoration to shorts.
Similar films Distributed: Kidouthood (2006) and Life and lyrics (2006).
I made this questionnaire and gave it to twenty people to answer:
1. What gender are you?
§ Female [ ]
§ Male [ ]
2. How old are you?
§ Under 15 [ ]
§ 15-20 [ ]
§ 21-26 [ ]
3. What type of Films you into?
Please specify_________________________________.
4. Would you say you’re interested in Thriller genre films?
§ Yes [ ]
§ No [ ]
5. What is your favourite thriller film and why?
Please specify______________________________________.
6. What types of media do you enjoy?
§ Television [ ]
§ Radio [ ]
§ Magazines [ ]
§ Newspapers [ ]
§ Film [ ]
Other? Please specify____________________________.
7. What is your annual income?
§ Under £20.000 [ ]
§ £20,000- £30,000 [ ]
§ £31,000-£40,000 [ ]
£41,000+ [ ]
8. Do you think ”Earlstoke Estate” have conventions of Thriller genre films??
§ Yes [ ]
§ No [ ]
9. Would you like to see more of “ Earlstoke Estate”?
§ Yes [ ]
§ No [ ]
§ Why?_____________________________________________.
We have made “ Earlstoke Estate” a certificate 15, as it would contain some violence, bad language and some scenes of a sexual nature. Our target audience is 15-20, our results from the 10 people from that age group mainly gave us positive, where as the younger group “found it a little boring”, while the 21-26 age group thought it “looked like something they had already seen”. This audience could feel that they can relate to characters in our film as they are in the same age/social group. We also would want bring up real life issues that can effect the audience.
Audience profile.
Name: Shanice Williams
Age: 17
Occupation: Student. Part time job in high street
Education: 9 A-C GCSE grades, currently studying 3 Levels in college in area.
Status: Dating
Hometown: East London.
Background: born in England but has a Portuguese and South African background.
What is your annual income: £2,564
What do you spend your money on: Cosmetics, glossy magazines, clothes/Accessories, restaurant, nigh outs and alcohol. Non-smoker
What do you like to do in your spare time: With friends, or dating friends, Television, radio social networking.
What type of music you into: R&B, Funk, Slow jams and Pop. Open minded to music.
What are your interests/ hobbies:, Shopping, parties, I-pod, cinema now and again, she’s a out going person but finds there’s nothing to do therefore watches a lot of TV.
Where do you shop for clothes: The High street
Do you have any kids: No
How many people in your household: 4, Mum Older brother, younger sister.
Our protagonist is a young female that lives in an urban area, similar to our opening setting. The actors are also around the same age thus she can relate to the film.
We would have a few television drama/ soap stars that we know 15-20 like for example former The Bill and Kidouthood actor Aml Ameen in the film to attract our audience, as we know this age and social group like him. We would run adverts between shows like Hoilyoaks on Channel4, have posters in certain areas in London that include the actors that will catch the attention of teenagers, and have adverts on social network sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Bebo and Youtube. A new was we could also advertise "Earlstoke estate" is by using blyk phone network made for 16-24 year olds to send textes about the release of the film. These would properly the most appropriate way of advertising our made for TV film.
Before the practice tasks I have never really used a video camera, Final cut pro, Live type or Soundtrack properly until then. This was a new exciting experience as I am interested in the kind of work we had to complete. In all three films I was hardly acting in them therefore I had a lot of say of what type of shots we do, however we had been told to uses match cuts and film everything in different angles just in case the one we hope to use does not work out, which would prevent inconsistency. Using Final cut pro was not too bad as we are all fast learners, nevertheless we did shoot to many shots that made it difficult to capture, as it was a very long process.
As an individual, I have learnt a great deal from this piece of coursework. Looking back at our preliminary task you can see we have processed as filmmakers, camera work and editing. As we had a brief for our preliminary task, we did not focus on planning or storyboarding, ‘A character opens a door, walks into a room, sits down opposite another character and they share a few of dialogue’. We just did what the brief has told of with out making it into a proper storyline, which was out first mistake. Also in editing we found it difficult, to match certain shots together without making it look to jumpy therefore we used many fades that was out second mistake. This helped us learn for our real opening as we learn fades make it seem it’s a while after or sometimes unnecessary. We definitely did not think it would have been so hard to make a two-minute thriller opening. To begin with we had to all try putting our individual ideas into the film to make t fair, give up some free time and try to work but simply cannot as the whether was not the same as the day we had already started filming. This can also be a lesson for us to learn for next time, we should have tried to film everything in one day. Then we would not have problems such as inconsistent weather, change in actors or lighting.
Bloggings
First practice
We were asked to film different shots of an opening scene of a thriller that had to include a newspaper ‘someone reading a newspaper in a thrilling and exciting way’. As people in our class have not used a camera before, we were shown how to shoot camera angles.
For our scene, we decided to only have one character reading the newspaper throughout the opening. We would also have another character watching the newspaper reader; however, this person would be shot from a point of view.
We reckon this shot worked as the character heavily breathed into the camera to show it was a point of view, we hand haled the camera to make it more effective.
We came up with the idea of having the actor reading the newspaper enter the room while the camera was hand haled moving backwards from a close up of the newspaper to the establish the scene.
A shot that did not work was our panning around the room to show the surroundings to show she was alone. This shot was way to long and did not show anything as we only shot white walls.
The editing went better then the shooting as we had disagreements while we were shooting the editing we agreed on everything. As we counted in 5 seconds between the shoots as we was told helped. Our shots worked perfectly for a first time, which made it easy to edit. It made scene as we used fades and other elements to put it all together.
As we didn’t plan for this, as we should of we did not bring anything for mise-en-scene. This was what made the scene look unprofessional. It also shows mise-en-scene is a big part of a film therefore we learnt to focus on it more next time.
We managed to create an element of suspense, as we did not have any sounds but the breathing from the person watching. Also we made it to look like this person was hiding from the girl reading the newspaper, which makes the audience question why? As the audience it creates a suspense feeling, as we know there is someone behind her, she hears noises but does not make anything of it. The last shot is the watcher rushing towards the girl and then a black out that gives the audience a fright as before movement was slow and quite which then it rapid.
Our teacher was pleased on how we edited and used the fades. I thought it would have not worked, as at first we did not shoot where we hoped. Also my group and I clashed on ideas making it hard to work. We came to conclusion of shooting many different shots and all finally worked out. I think this was a good exercise as it showed us what we would need to do and not do on our coursework.
As a group we defiantly learnt from the first practice, there was less disagreements as we shot many different shots everyone though would work as Dan told us the more you shoot the better is as we have more choices. Also professional filmmakers only use 10 per cent of what they actually shoot. The brief stated the clip does not have to be thrilling, however we made the clip suspenseful by using two characters walking to the location where the character was sitting, to let the audience think what is she doing and who is going to go inside. The lighting of the hall was good as it was not too bright to add to the thrilling feel. The lighting in the classroom was brighter then the hallway to see the characters facial expression as in the hall there was not any.
Second practice/ Preliminary task
Our second brief was ‘A character opens a door, walks into a room, sits down opposite another character and they share a few line of dialogue’. Overall, we was pleased with this but thought we had done better on our first practice. To try to make this thrilling we made the character walking into the room a mystery by not revealing their face till when they got into the room. We shot from legs and below of two characters walking towards the door to build curiousness, while we showed cross cut shots of the other character sitting inside the room looking anxious. Admittedly we do not think the second practice was as successful as the first one.
Planning Thriller
When we had to make a plot, we brainstormed the word Thriller. We just thought of words that connotes thriller like strange, tense, scary and chilling. From the words we was able to pick what we wanted our audience to feel. We planned it would have to include a girl as we are all girls and we would be the most reliable people.
Storyboard and pitch
Between the three of us we came up with a concept of a girl being followed by a man. We thought to have the girl coming back from a night out getting into a bus, when a man asks her for the time unfortunately she replies rudely that causes him to follower her home.
We had numerous ideas for or final storyboard but decided to have ‘a girl waiting for a bus texting, girl gets into bus, down an alleyway when she feels she is been followed, girl gets into a lift while it somebody tries to stop her. Also throughout this, we would have cross cuts of her been attacked. We planned our storyboard in detail; we hoped that the camera shots would not be longer then five seconds long. We would have close ups of the girls face to show her emotion. As she walks she feels suspicious as she is alone and starts looking around curelessly, at this point her premonitions begin. Foe our pitch in our longer period we broke down every shot we would include. We explained the plot, told the class about the different camera angles we would use, sound and location. To make it easier and fair for everyone we decided to film in Angel near college. At first Dan our teacher was confused about our storyline, however we explained most of the techniques would be down to the editing, so by this point we was ready to get started.
First day of shooting Thriller
On our first day of filming we was ready as we all was in class on time, changed and ready to go. This was on our shorter lesson but was perfect because of the lighting (time of day). Our location was a five minute walk from college, which when we got there we started filming straight away. Chinewkay and myself thought to start with the walks as there was straightforward, longest and we would include match cuts. The alleyway was perfect for our mise en scene as it was red that connotes danger, fear and strange. We also did pan shots of the area; in conclusion our first day of filming was a success.
Second day of shooting Thriller
Our second day of filming was in a different time of day as it was or longer lesson in the morning, but this didn’t matter, as we wanted the attack scene to be in negative colour. We also focused on the alleyway scene which looked red therefore was not a problem. We started by filming Siju walking down the alley in a long shot, front and back, then medium shot, hand held, close ups to show her terrified facial expression.
We had a point of view shot of her and a point of view to make it seem she is being followed. After this we finished doing this bit but needed someone to represent the stalker following her. A first I tried to play the role, although this did not work as I do not have a man’s built and was not correctly dressed. Luckily enough a guy was walking past that we asked if he had some spare time to do a few scenes for us. He did a few walks just like Siju and we shot the same shots we did for her. This was our second day of filming, we got Shaun the guy who was lovely enough to helps number just in case we might need him again and called it a day.
Third day of shooting Thriller
Due to the bad weather, we were unable to shoot for two lessons. Fortunately the snow cleared up. Our aims today were to finish and start to capture the whole thing this lesson. Nevertheless Shaun was unable to make it for the attacking scene, which was disappointment. But though instead of doing nothing we could do the bus stop scene. We started by doing a shot from across the road and a shot of Siju standing in the shot when a bus pulls up which when leaves she is not there to make it seem she go on it. We did many shots like point of views of her looking at the bus stop, stepping onto the bus and texting on her phone. Again luckily one of Siju’s friends Liam was walking by that was wearing a black hooded coat similar to Shaun’s. We used him for the attack scene that was very successful as a woman was walking by and was frightened as she though it was real. We also did our last scene in the lift that was a simple, Siju walked into the lift as Liam stopped the door from closing with his hand with out seeing his face. We done this, as we want there to be a mystery on who stops the lift, as there’s many possibilities on who it might be.
Editing film
We first started to edit during the half term break, as there was a workshop for one day. We noticed we had to many shots compared to other groups but did not know what we would use so we logged and captured everything. We put our clips into group sections in order to make it easier when we started putting the film together. At first everything seemed confusing, by the end of the session we have put together the first few seconds but decided to leave the rest for when we return to college. When we cracked down to editing straight away, which became easier. We edited in lessons and lunchtimes. We did not have a big problem with it looking too jumpy like our preliminary task and only used fades at the bus stop to show she has been waiting for a long time. After putting every shot together we added the negative effects to the short clips of attacks, we wanted to keep them short to build tension. We added this to separate it from the other scene to show it is not happening that present time. We also added slow motion to when Siju the girl character got into the lift to create suspense and make the stop of the lift door alarming. In editing we tried to all contributed order to ensure that no one was left out.
Sound and Livetype editing
Our last important touch was to compose the perfect soundtrack for the two minutes. At first this was really difficult as nobody had experience, we searched though every sound effect there is on soundtrack to make sure we did not miss out on anything. We decided it would be more effective to have instrument sounds instead of sounds. For the beginning we wanted the sound to be kept as a minimum, but we wanted to have some diegtic and non-diegetic sounds throughout. At the alley scene we had shocking creepy instruments such as slow piano keys. However we did not want sound to over power the film in order to keep the audience engaged with the film. livetype was actually quite straight forward but we had a little disagreement on what type of writing should be used, but as a result we did a bit of both that added to the thriller genre.
Finishing and showing the class
We showed our class the final film. I was overall pleased with the reaction. People felt tense at the right times such as through the alleyway and jumped at the lift scene. The teachers was also satisfied with the film, I received positive feedback from our target audience from my questionnaire. In conclusion I enjoyed accomplishing this coursework.
Earlstoke Estate from 283goswell on Vimeo.
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