Storyboard Development

As you can see from the following images, we have developed our drawn story board to images, helping us visualise how effective certain angles and movements will look.

Question 6: Technology Development

Created with Padlet

Post Production: Audience Feedback

This photo shows us playing our final thriller piece to a small audience, to gain feedback. We received the following feedback;

"Overall, the thriller was enticing, consistent and well edited- with some effects that really gave the 'wow factor'. The quality of acting remained strong throughout and the play with time effectively revealed the storyline. To improve, I would recommend choosing a slightly thinner and more crisp font that suited the genre more"

"Straight away, we knew it was of the thriller/horror genre and by the end of the trailer, we had a good idea about what the story plot was. There was a wide variety of camera shots and angles as well as different transitions and effects used. All of the needed titles to show that it was an opening were included (such as directed by...etc.). My only constructive criticism is that the font used didn't fit too well and didn't have the connotations of thriller and therefore didn't contribute to creating any suspense"

After reading through feedback and taking it on board, it is apparent that the font used was disliked by viewers as they felt it didn't suit the thriller genre- which may be something we will have to consider more of next time.

Music Activity

Click here to view our music activity
This was composed on the music software Mixcraft and helped us experiment in creating a non-diegetic sound track to add onto our thriller piece. Due to uploading issues, the video will not upload to my blog, however, I still contributed greatly towards the making of this.

Filming Timetable

To help us stay organised and time efficient, we have created a week's timetable that depicts what days we will be filming, these days are also based on the online weather report and works around both our school and work hours. We have made the decision to film in the evening or night due to the lighting outside, as low key lighting and shadows is more suited to the thriller genre as it has the connotations of mystery and danger- which will help create tension.

Update: Storyboard & Weather

This image of myself drawing up our storyboard so we have an exact idea on what camera angles and movements to use and to help us visualise the storyline coming together through the different shots. However, we do expect we may slightly alter our storyboard if we;

• Have new spontaneous ideas that are better than our previous thoughts
• For some reason cannot film the shot we planned, for example because of the weather 
• After looking at the video, decide it will not be effective and can come up with an alternative

As said before, the weather is a predictable factor that we're very much reliant on (due to our location being outdoors). It would deem unsafe to film in conditions such as rain, fog and ice as it could damage our electrical damage and is dangerous for everyone in our group. 

Green Screen activity: Preliminary

 

Below is a video, illustrating how I experimented with using a green screen and then added it into our piece by using the editing software Adobe Premier Pro and using the chroma key effect. This not only developed my technical knowledge of this program which will be useful when editing my thriller piece, but also allowed me to try new methods of presenting an evaluation, using different types of media. Unfortunately, this was too time consuming to complete.

Editing: Sound (Post Production)

We used the site http://www.sounddogs.com/ to find synchronous, diegetic sound effects for out thriller. We decided on using the creak of a gate, as this adds a rather sinister atmosphere and will be accompanied by our non-diegetic soundtrack that we have created on the software Mixcraft.
  Our soundtrack will remain on throughout our piece but decreases in volume when the voice over begins, as we decided it would distract the audience from our narration which effectively informs the audience on what's happening. The soundtrack is parallel to the thriller genre has it hold a eerie tone and so once again will add to the tight atmosphere we've created

Voice over- Production

After recording our voice over, we realised the microphone had picked up background noise and was of poor quality, as an alternative we used our phones- but once again the sound quality wasn't what we was looking for. We resulted in using a 'boom' mic in an empty office and removing the slight bit of background noise on mixcraft- ending up with a clear, good quality voice over that we shall add onto our thriller piece.

THRILLER EVALUATION

Question 1: http://prezi.com/ghf6s-fn7xda/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Vladimir Propp:
http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=9668393&height=267&width=200

http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=9668411&height=267&width=200

http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=9668429&height=267&width=200

Questions 2-7: http://prezi.com/hb0i7zpxuwjf/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

PRODUCTION

These picture's were took during production and shows us setting up equipment and props, ready to film. We have also had a few setbacks due to the weather, which couldn't be predicted by our group and so we had to postpone filming for a later date.

Final Thriller Opening: The Marshalnds

This is our final thriller opening that we have uploaded to the social media site; YouTube.

Risk Assesment Sheet

This is our Risk Assessment Sheet to guarantee our filming experience is as safe as possible
 

Textual Analysis

Our group work; textual analysis of the thriller film Insidious...

Below are some print screen from the opening of Insidious.

The titles used are effective in showing the genre of the film. It does so because of the colours. By using a lot of black surrounding, it connotes a dark, mysterious and scary setting. The titles of the film are red which connotes blood meaing that it is fitting to the film as it is a thriller.

 This boy is the first character to be shown in the film which is suggestive in telling us that he is the, or one of the main characters. Furthermore, this image gives us a hint as to where the film is set as it shows a bedroom within a house.

This part of the opening shows us a family photo which makes us think that the film has something to do with this family. By having the black and white effect it connotes a sense of death to it as there is no colour/life in the picture which takes away the happiness from their smiles and instead creates quite a sinister atmosphere.

Throughout the opening, there are images of the house both the exterior (like this image) and interior which suggests to the audience that this house has some importance within the film.

This character is the second character that is shown in the film. This makes us think that she has some importance in the film. Because this character is quite covered up, surrounded by darkness, it helps portray the genre of the film as it creates quite a scary image and suits the thriller genre.

Textual Anaylisis: The Hills Have Eyes

This is my Textual Analysis of the film opening 'The Hills Have Eyes'.

Film Classification

As a group, we discussed and researched into film classification and produced this powerpoint point on how it will relate to our thriller piece. The following post illustrates mine and Emma (a member in our group) thought's on different film production companies and can also be found on her blog

F

Users and Gratification Theory

This is a presentation done by myself explain the Users and Gratification Theory and how we will apply it to our thriller piece.

Final Story Line

This is a scanned version of our final story line, explaining the plot and characters used.

Story Line: Draft

This is a draftt version of our story line, this will help us develop the structure of our piece and lead us to create a storyboard

Story Board: Part 1

This is the first four shots of our Thriller Opening, explaining the; setting, shot,angle, movement,action, lighting, props and sound used in each shot.

Lesson Work

 This is the first draft for the narration that will feature on our Thriller opening and was written by Emma Laird. We thought a voice over would be an alternative method that informs the audience of our story line but doesn't give too much away and therefore maintains suspicion.

This is evidence of myself creating the first four shots of our story board, a scanned version of our story board including; camera angles, camera shots, props, lighting, editing style etc can be found on my blog.

Titles Experiment: Moving Images

This is our Preliminary piece with added titles, giving the sequence more structure. This was done on Adobe Premier Pro and has developed our skills to give us the ability to effectively use titles in out Thriller Opening.

Click here to view

Film Production Research

Click here to read my Film Production Research 

Film Production Companies

I researched brands that have produced film companies in order to find the best and most suitable to produce our thriller. Naturally, my mind first thought of Warner Brothers with it being one of the most successful brands of its kind. However, I soon discovered that its not the most appropriate due to the lack of Thrillers that they have produced (the only two on the website are Red Riding Hood and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride). Furthermore, these two thrillers don't fit our criteria in the sense that one is 12 and the other PG. This differs from ours as we've decided to have our thriller as a 15.

I next researched other various companies that may be suitable for our thriller. For example, I searched who produced the Bourne films. However, I thought that selecting an English company would be more suitable rather than American based.

I finally came across Hammer Films. Known for their Gothic films having produced many successful thrillers and horrors I was intrigued to find that this particular company may just be the most suitable for our thriller. Hammer Films was previously sold after their previous success and then sold again in 2007 where production went into action again. Since then Hammer has produced the highest-grossing British horror film in 20 years, making $127,730,736 as of June 2012; The Woman In Black starring Daniel Radcliffe. Hammer is also now in the process of producing The Woman In black sequel Angels Of Death (with great expectations, having read the book written by Martyn Waites myself).

This particular success caught my attention as a lot of the inspiration for our thriller was based on this film. Having personally studied the opening to this film, I learnt what to expect in the opening of a thriller as well as various other aspects such as how exactly the directors create a tense atmosphere without giving too much away (a very important aspect in determining the success of a thriller).

I finally decided that Hammer Films is the most appropriate production company not only due to its success worldwide but because of its success with the appropriate genre (thriller/horror). I feel that even though The Woman In Black is a different age rating to our thriller, it is relatable as there is a similar theme to the film as both are meant to mildly scare viewers with the sense of an unknown presence. I therefore feel that we could potentially gain the same success with the right Company should we have to choose one.

Thriller Opening: Story Line

This is our final story line for our Thriller opening, as a group we decided to create a chilling thriller sequence with elements of supernatural. Our storyline will help us develop a strong story board, giving our piece a good,planned structure.

Lighting Experiment

 The image almost masks the characters identity, this establishes a rather mysterious atmosphere which successfully makes the audience suspicious. It also creates a shadow, consequently the character looks more intimidating and superior- this would be effective in a thriller genre film.

 Similarly to the first image, this creates a large shadow which emphasises the character's dominance and gives the impression that they have authority. The silhouette also gives connotations of crime as they're often associated with gangs on the street, this also could be effective in our thriller.

The last image differs to the others, by placing the lighting source behind the character we created an outer-glow that establishes an supernatural vibe. It could also be useful for enhancing specific props such as the blade of a knife.

British Board of Film Classification

This is our research towards finding out an appropriate age certificate for our Thriller, we have decided to rate our thriller an age rating of 15 as some of the themes dealt with (such as violence and scenes of a disturbing nature) may be considered inappropriate for children under the age of 15. We didn't give our thriller an age certificate of 18 as there are no; drug or sex references and  no offensive/ discriminating content.