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Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

To ensure I was able to complete the thriller title sequence successfully, I completed a preliminary task in order to learn all of the basic rules of planning, recording and editing a media production. I also learnt rules such the match on action and shot reverse shots continuity. I constantly put these rules I learnt into consideration throughout the filming and editing of my production. 

I have progressed from the prelim in several ways: 

On the left is a screen shot of our preliminary task, we used a close up of the character we named 'The Killer', we found this had a effective end result, demonstrating tension and confusion, fitting well with the genre. We decided to use this idea in our title sequence. However, we used an extreme close (in the picture below) as we were trying to keep the antagonists characters identity unknown. We progressed since our prelim task as we expanded on our original idea and made it more effective. 

 

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

How did you attract/address your audience?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

LOCATION

Audience Evaluation - Class Disscusion

In today's lesson, we all watched and gave feedback on each others final pieces. I enjoyed watching my peers final pieces and supplying them with helpful feedback.

We received a variety of feedback:

Positive:

• Slow build of tension
• Really good ambient sounds that creates tension
• The production title fills its function and is good 
• Creates enigma with the dragging of the bag and the mysterious nature of the male antagonist
• The eye at the end of the sequence creates an enigma around the mans identity

 Improvements:

• Some of the shots are too long so there isn't much drama, these need to be shortened or there needs to be more action within them. They get rather boring after a while.
• The addition of ambient and diegetic sounds would improve the quality of the opening sequence. Adding sound effects such as footsteps and wind sounds would improve this.

Final Draft

Editing the Final Draft

Firstly, Hannah and I renamed all of our re-recorded files before adding them to our other files on the editing programme.  We had to crop the starts and ends to stick to the rules of continuity, and then change the saturation of the images we wanted to make look darker. We managed to achieve this much faster then last time as we are both much more confident with the software.  Although, we did have to ask for assistance with changing the brightness of the shots as we have never done this before. 

We mutually agreed to change the title design as we wanted it too have blood-like connotations to create both suspense and enigma. 
 









A problem we did face was we could not get some of the footage as dark as we wanted it, as we were aiming for a night-like setting. However, other then that, editing our final piece went particularly well.  


 

Refilming

In today's lessons myself and Hannah went to re-record selected parts of our title sequence, the parts our peers thought we would benefit from changing and improving. We are going to edit our footage within the next few days. The bits we re-filmed were the close up, pans of the trees as our peers believed that the camera quality could be improved as some of these were shaky and not in focus.

Before we went out to record, we spent a long amount of time on deciding exactly what we were going to do, what shots we are aiming for, and the position in which we want the camera in. This made filming much easier and effective as we got straight to filming, giving us more time to watch over our footage and change anything we weren't happy with. I was featured in the title sequence so Hannah recorded the bits I was in and we took it in turns to record the rest. Whilst one of us recorded, the other set up the equipment, positioned the camera correctly, set up the characters etc.

Hannah and I watched our footage after it was recorded. We both agreed that we was not happy with the background sounds that the camera had picked up. However we are going to be adding ambient and diegetic sounds, so hopefully these will not show up in our final piece.

Audience Evaluation of First Edit

Audience Evaluation of First Edit 

Hannah and I asked our peers for their opinion on our first draft, below are their responses which we recorded. We are going to use their responses in order to improve our title sequence and ensure we are sticking to the conventions of a thriller. Also the positive responses allow us to keep the good parts the same.

Title Planning

In today's lessons, Hannah and I created our titles for our opening sequences. We created a production name, actors names to include, casting by and a film by. 

We collidided our last names together to create the name of our production company - Brook Farm Productions. 

Casting and film by: 
Emily Brookes
Hannah Farmer

Actors: 

Harry Farmer

Emily Brookes

Leland Orser

Pamala Tyson

Delilah Paltrow

T.Ray Massee

Rosallena Borden

Peter Starstruck         

We are going to have the titles fade in and out of the screen. We are currently deciding on the logo to use alongside our production company name. 

We are deciding between: 

We like the style of the third one.  The blade like 'A' fits the genre. We are going to use this as a template to make our production logo. We are thinking of combining the second and third one.

Title Research

Hannah and I decided to look at titles of other professionally made and other media student's work on titles so that I can attain an idea of what I would like my titles to look like for the final edit. We specifically focused on the title sequence of the thriller 'Se7en' as this film is similar to the type of narrative we are trying to create.

Adding Sound Effects

Adding Sound Effect 

To stick to the conventions of a thriller movie, we need ensure the filming contains suspense. We are going to include diegetic sound effects to do so, such as: 

•  Footsteps (when the character is walking)
• Bird noises (adds suspense and continuity the setting)
• Wind sounds (continuity of the setting) 
• Children's laughter (children laughing is part of narrative) 

 (Below are examples of the sounds we are going to use) 

We are also going to include a range of non-diegetic music 

• Uncertian, suspense filled music (creates confusion and suspense, fitting genre) 
• Loud 'bang' noise when title appears (make the audience shocked and afraid) 

 









Here are some examples of the sounds we found: 
1) Footsteps (diegetic sounds for when the character is walking)
2)Pyschedelic (to fit our non-diegetic description, also we used it for our prelim and it we really liked the suspense it created) 
3)Black Sapphire (would work well during the titles)  
4) Bird Noises (in order to add to the verisimilitude of the setting)

Editing - First Draft

 Editing - First Draft

Hannah and I started editing our thriller title sequence. We cropped down all our shots to ensure they all fit together accuratly, we then placed them all in the correct order. After this we added very basic titles and sounds which we soon add to and improve. After this edit, we showed our peers and ask for their opinions before making changes to the parts they believe we can improve.  Next we will ensure we make these improvements. In order to make our editing less time consuming, we renamed all our shots to save confusion. We are currently finding it rather hard when attempting to match the sound effects with the movement of the charatcter for example  we found a footstep soubnd clip, but we are struggling to match it.

Filming - Title Sequence

Filming 
When we arrived at the chosen location, we walked around a little in order to find the best positioning to start our filming. I checked the camera battery to make sure we had enough battery to record our whole sequence whilst Hannah set up the tripod. As myself and Hannah planned every shot before hand, it helped us vastly making our filming quicker and more effiecent. We was able to position and prepare for each shot fast as we new exactly what shots we were going to do. After recording every shot, we watched our recordings twice, to ensure they were to the standard we require, if they wasnt, we would re-record to ensure they are. Throughout the filming process, Hannah and I took it in turns to film each shot. While on of us was filming the other was positioning the actors and ensuring the shots followed the rule of continuity. After we completed recording our main narrative, we recored different shots of the trees, which we plan to jump cut in with our main narrative.  

However, while we were filming we noticed that the bag filling wasn't heavy enough, so it didn't look the way we had envisioned it, as we only filled it with stuffed toys it didn't give look like a dead body, which was our aim. When filming some shots we didn't use the tripod as they were tracking shots, as a result of this our shots are slightly shaky making them look less professional and to an amateur standard. I would like to re-film our opening shot of the trees to improve the quality of our opening sequence. Also we planned to take a birdseye view shot of the trees, this idea was not thought through properly as there was no way we could pursue this idea easily. If I was to film the whole opening sequence again I would change the outfit of the male character to have him wear either a mask or hat to obscure his identity and add mystery and suspense to the thriller. 

On the left is a photo of myself and Hannah during the filming.