Thriller evaluation by siju

Thriller Evaluation

When developing our thriller opening, we want to create a something that was interesting and creative, something that could match thriller movies of today. In order to create this we looked at films that already existed, we watched films like ‘The Shining’ directed by Stanley Vivian Kubrick and ‘Arlington Road’ in class, to gain an understanding of the genre ‘Thriller’. We really liked the opening of ‘Arlington road’, the way they used effects like solarisation, interested us and we decide to incorporate it in our thriller opening. I had previously watched ‘The Hole (2001)’ directed by Nick Hamm, and really liked the plot of the opening scene. The use camera shot and angles to create such and intense and uneasy atmosphere was very effective. We applied these conventions in the plot of our Thriller by using similar techniques e.g. low angle shots, ex long shots, and close ups. Using ex long shots in my thriller created isolation of the character and her vulnerability, close ups allowed the audience to see the expressions and emotions of the character. It also allowed the audience to see detail in the scene (the attack) and long shots showed the mise en scene, which allowed the audience to see the urban surroundings.

We had two characters in our film, one was a teenage girl, and the other was a male attacker. We took advantage of the social groups represented to gain more of the audience’s interest, and also allowing them to relate to the characters. The girl in our film represent black teenage girls, the working class because she uses public transport and lives in a council estate. She also represents people who live inner city London; she is dress in a provocative way which may represent the young female attitudes of the 21st century. The other character of the film is a male attacker, he wears a black hoodie, and attackers the girl in an alley way in London. This character represents the stereotype of young inner city males of today, ‘trouble makers and criminals’.

The media institution that would distribute our media product would most likely be TV film, Channel 4, because our film would be a thriller drama created and directed in the UK, and Channel 4 shows a lot of UK films. Our film would also be very low budgeted, so we would try and sell or DVDs online (internet) and we wouldn’t have to pay any distributors to sell our film. We also wouldn’t be able to afford to put it up in a cinema, so channel 4 would be more affordable to distribute our film.

A typical person who would fit into our target audience for our film would be a teenage male or female, aged 16 - 24, goes to college and loves going out in their share time to cinemas or parties. Lives in London, works part – time and shops in high street clothing stores. They love socialising and internet social network like facebook and myspace.

I would attract my audience through advertisements in colleges and six forms, using posters and handouts, I would address my audience by having the characters pictures on the handouts, so they could relate to them because they are teenager and also gain a little knowledge on the kind of film it is. We would also have a short trailer on channel 4 so people would be reminded of the film and when it going to show. I would create a website for my thriller advertising the film, and showing the trailer, this would able a wider global audience to see the film.

During the process of constructing my thriller I found I learnt about technologies in media. I enjoyed filming a lot, playing with angles and shots. At first it was hard trying to be creative without looking too amateur, but once we got the hang of it we was able to manipulate different angle to create good match cuts and clips to put together out thriller. However the weather made it difficult to film sometimes with it being too cold or raining. I learnt how when filming its important to pay attention to detail to make the film flow like the 360 rule.

Using final cut pro was the hardest and longest part of creating our thriller. It was difficult cutting scenes and matching them to other ones. It took a lot of patients when using final cut pro because we had to get used to the controls and techniques but once we got some help and fully understood the basics of the program, it was easy. We had captured a lot of footage so we found it easy to match scenes together. We used effects like fading one scene to another to able scene to able the film to flow better.

When we had finished editing we went on to create a soundtrack. This was quite fun, we learnt how to use sound in certain areas of our film to create different moods and atmospheres; we started off with a mellow strings to create a light atmosphere while the character wasn’t in danger. Then when we would cut into another scene where the ‘attack’ would happen, we used a creepy sound to show something is going to happen and deep bass which created tension within the audience. It was fun to play around with the sound, and matching the sound effects to the film.

When making the credits we used Livetype this again was interesting and new to us because we had never used the software, we learnt how to turn simple text into and creative colours and movement. Because there was so much effects to choose form we struggle a little in finding the best one to reflect our film, also their was many difference in opinions within the group. However we did come to an agreement on the final text, but when I watched our final finished film I didn’t like the choice of text it looked cheap and tacky.

When we finished the thriller we put it up on the internet for a wider audience. We used social networking sites like vimeo, blogs and facebook so all our friends and networks could see it. Using the internet is a great way of gaining a bigger audience easily by a click of button. This is also a way of recording and saving our product with easy access to it when we need. It wasn’t difficult putting our product on the internet but it did take a long time to load.

Looking back on my preliminary task I feel that it helped to prepare me for my thriller project. It gave me and understanding of how media technology works, and how to develop film. It taught me how to ‘match cut’ and the importance of it, how to create and develop a storyboard which is a very important when creating a film; it’s a way of planning, so u know where to start form and what needs to be done. Our preliminary task didn’t turn out that good because we lacked planning, we just filmed what we thought we would need, but when it came to editing we realised we didn’t have enough footage to ‘match cut’ properly and create a good production. We realise after this task that to create a good thriller product we need to plan properly before we beginning and kept track of what we our filming.