For my coursework, we had to work in groups to successfully create a thriller. Firstly we were given a tutorial of how to use the equipment and the Mac’s. Then we got onto the actual filming by doing a practice thriller of a ‘Thrilling Card Game’. After, we did a match cut exercise to help us to understand what a match cut is and this of which I have posted onto my blog. Looking back at the match cut exercise, I have seen major improvements in my filming skills which I will mention further in this evaluation.
The typical convention of a thriller is included in my work as it successfully raised questions such as: what is going on? and why is it happening? The whole concept of our thriller was influenced by current happenings shown by the mass media today. Our thriller included a perverted character that held a girl hostage, in a cold isolated basement. Thrillers usually use the base colours of grey and black, and the natural setting had those colours which made it look realistic and creepy. An example of this is ‘The Terminator’ this helps emphasise the mood of the situation. We also included a flashback and put a filter colour of blue on it.
Shots from 'The Terminator'
This helps show the coldness of that time and also makes it look as something that happened previously. Our thriller has challenged usual creepy thrillers, as a blue colour filter is often found in action thrillers such as ‘The Terminator’. Including this makes our thriller unique and challenges other thrillers of the same genre. Our opening includes clear establishing shots, which are all evenly sized and makes sense.
The people featured in my thriller are young characters. This kind of film is mainly aimed at 16+ teenagers as they can understand the situation of a girl being held ransom/hostage and will understand the creepiness of it. On our feedback, it was mentioned that the actual lighting made it look creepy as well as the thriller itself.
In further feedback, our group was told that we had made good music to go according with our thriller. The group worked together in making the music. Jennifer gave the idea of adding classical music into the opening to make it ironic. I added a baseline throughout the thriller, but it went on for too long, which would make an audience lose interest. The in and out of focus shots worked well as it made it look very effective and professional. The fact that we filmed from a cameras point of view and a characters point of view helps the audience see the story from two different points. For the characters point of view, I handheld the camera in order to give it a shaky effect and to show the perverted fashion of the situation which the previous image with the ‘REC’ sign shows this.
Focus Shots:
The people featured in my thriller are young characters. This kind of film is mainly aimed at 16+ teenagers as they can understand the situation of a girl being held ransom/hostage and will understand the creepiness of it. On our feedback, it was mentioned that the actual lighting made it look creepy as well as the thriller itself.
In further feedback, our group was told that we had made good music to go according with our thriller. The group worked together in making the music. Jennifer gave the idea of adding classical music into the opening to make it ironic. I added a baseline throughout the thriller, but it went on for too long, which would make an audience lose interest. The in and out of focus shots worked well as it made it look very effective and professional. The fact that we filmed from a cameras point of view and a characters point of view helps the audience see the story from two different points. For the characters point of view, I handheld the camera in order to give it a shaky effect and to show the perverted fashion of the situation which the previous image with the ‘REC’ sign shows this.
Focus Shots:
My film will be distributed by the British Film company: Working Title 2. It will be a low budget film because new actors/actresses will be featured in them. I will do this as a way to work up in the film industry. It would be more beneficial to use unknown talents rather than spend a lot of the budget on an actor because, if the film failed- there wouldn’t be so much of a financial problem.
I will attract my audience by advertising my film on British television first. The main channels I will focus on will be Film 4, ITV, Five and the BBC. This website http://www.channel4.com/film/cinemadvd/cinema_newreleases.html shows cinema releases and lists the ‘Top 10 Must See Movies’. The new talents will also encourage the audience to be more enthusiastic about watching it, especially if it is a niche audience.
The technology that I have used in the making of my film has been very useful and quick and easy to learn. It is not so complicated after getting used to editing. Throughout the making of the thriller, as the director of the film, I was the decisive person of the group and made sure everything was appropriate and went according to actual thriller conventions. These are things like, raising questions being unclear and not telling too much of the story in an instant. By using flashbacks, we have enabled the viewers to really think about what is going on.
Using Final Cut pro was very interesting and effective to see how the sequence of our thriller would look when it has been put together. We also used Soundtrack Pro which was much easier to get used to than Final Cut pro. On Soundtrack pro, I learnt how to adjust music (by making the pitch higher and lower at specific points of the soundtrack) and learnt what type of music goes with what. Understanding and being able to perfect a soundtrack and editing that goes according to the typical conventions of a thriller, shows just how much work and effort needs to be put in. Furthermore, I have learnt how to use www.vimeo.com in the making of the thriller as in the actual footage, the villain uploads the video of his hostage onto this website.
Looking back, I have learnt a lot of things that I never understood about the film making industry. I have learnt how to: film appropriately, log and capture footage, put effects on footage, do match cuts (which before this course I never even noticed), make a whole soundtrack of our own and be able to use the Mac’s comfortably. I have also improved my blogging skills and can comfortably write in simple everyday language of what I had done and my progression during the making of the thriller.
The very first idea of our thriller, was not appropriate as it was too complicated to be an opening of a thriller. It was like we were putting a whole storyline into an opening of a thriller- which wouldn’t match with the usual conventions of a thriller because it would have raised question but, it would have also answered them. This of course is not what we would have liked to aim for. We asked our teachers for advice and they told us to not make our opening complicated. Therefore as a group, we worked together to achieve a much simpler but exciting opening instead. We have called our thriller Victim No.6 and the title itself gives connotations of danger and shows a continuity of how the character (villain) is. After finalising the ideas, making a plan of what to film was useful because not using a plan can make things very stressful and confusing.
Overall, me and my group are very pleased of our thriller outcome. We believe that we have matched true conventions of a thriller well enough in our own film and that all this effort has had a positive outcome.
I will attract my audience by advertising my film on British television first. The main channels I will focus on will be Film 4, ITV, Five and the BBC. This website http://www.channel4.com/film/cinemadvd/cinema_newreleases.html shows cinema releases and lists the ‘Top 10 Must See Movies’. The new talents will also encourage the audience to be more enthusiastic about watching it, especially if it is a niche audience.
The technology that I have used in the making of my film has been very useful and quick and easy to learn. It is not so complicated after getting used to editing. Throughout the making of the thriller, as the director of the film, I was the decisive person of the group and made sure everything was appropriate and went according to actual thriller conventions. These are things like, raising questions being unclear and not telling too much of the story in an instant. By using flashbacks, we have enabled the viewers to really think about what is going on.
Using Final Cut pro was very interesting and effective to see how the sequence of our thriller would look when it has been put together. We also used Soundtrack Pro which was much easier to get used to than Final Cut pro. On Soundtrack pro, I learnt how to adjust music (by making the pitch higher and lower at specific points of the soundtrack) and learnt what type of music goes with what. Understanding and being able to perfect a soundtrack and editing that goes according to the typical conventions of a thriller, shows just how much work and effort needs to be put in. Furthermore, I have learnt how to use www.vimeo.com in the making of the thriller as in the actual footage, the villain uploads the video of his hostage onto this website.
Looking back, I have learnt a lot of things that I never understood about the film making industry. I have learnt how to: film appropriately, log and capture footage, put effects on footage, do match cuts (which before this course I never even noticed), make a whole soundtrack of our own and be able to use the Mac’s comfortably. I have also improved my blogging skills and can comfortably write in simple everyday language of what I had done and my progression during the making of the thriller.
The very first idea of our thriller, was not appropriate as it was too complicated to be an opening of a thriller. It was like we were putting a whole storyline into an opening of a thriller- which wouldn’t match with the usual conventions of a thriller because it would have raised question but, it would have also answered them. This of course is not what we would have liked to aim for. We asked our teachers for advice and they told us to not make our opening complicated. Therefore as a group, we worked together to achieve a much simpler but exciting opening instead. We have called our thriller Victim No.6 and the title itself gives connotations of danger and shows a continuity of how the character (villain) is. After finalising the ideas, making a plan of what to film was useful because not using a plan can make things very stressful and confusing.
Overall, me and my group are very pleased of our thriller outcome. We believe that we have matched true conventions of a thriller well enough in our own film and that all this effort has had a positive outcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment