Evaluation 2 - Seth Tumwa

Evaluation 1 - Seth Tumwa

Evaluation Question 7 - Maximilian

Evaluation Question 6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
By: Maximilian

Equipment used:
Canon DSLR 650d EOS
Camera lens’                                                                        

LED Spotlight and filter                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Flip-cam 

Final cut pro 

Strengths: 

The Canon DSLR 650d EOS was easy to use once you understood how to set up the white balance and manually focus correctly which was easily picked up. The tripod gave us the stable support that we needed to make professional looking shots when filming. The lighting was very simple and easy to use as well since we knew where we needed to place the lights to get the best naturalistic shot. The Flip Cameras gave us quick opportunity's to film audience feedback and our own discussions since they are simple to set up and easy to use. Final cut pro was amazing to use since the layout was very helpful and everything we waned to do to our opening, we were able to do it.    

Limitations: 

Because Canon DSLR 650d EOS is expensive, we didn't want to risk taking some of the camera shots we wanted to take because of its value, also sometimes when the camera would shut off it would take time to get back on when we would need it. The tripod was annoying at times since it was difficult to keep a steady camera when we were not able to place the tripod in a secure position because of space. In addition to this, the LED lights would keep dying because they consume so much battery life so quickly.  

Editing:

Final cut pro was very hard at first to understand how the software worked, but once I got up to date and speed with the program, it became very simple and easy to start and edit what I wanted to be shown. The layout became pretty clear and the key tools I needed to edit were placed clearly so that I didn't have to spend time trying to find every specific tool. Shown bellow is our finished Thriller opening in editing form where we can see each piece of raw footage being connected with different transitions and with different sound effects and music overlaying for the diegetic sound. We can also see the placements of titles and the raw footage still at the top section just in case we need to make any last minute changes.    

The main problem that we faced was trying to go through all the raw footage and deciding which certain sections we needed to cut and use since we had around ten times the amount of raw footage then the amount we actually decided to use, which was then even more cut down so that the music and titles could be fitted and so it could still fit near the two minute mark. 

Question 5 (Group)

How did you attract/ address your audience?

Conventions of a thriller we wanted to incorporate in our advertising and marketing campaign:

              

                An element of Tension 

                An antagonist

                Devices used to keep the audience guessing 

    Build up to a climax 

    Cliff hangers 

                Red herrings – misleading information  

                Big revelation at the end  

                Effective use of soundtracks 

                

Marketing through social media:

We feel that we can reach our target audience (15-21) successfully through the digital market- particularly social media. This is because this age range spends the most time on the internet and on social media sites. We drew inspiration for this idea from previous film marketing campaigns such as 21 jump street and The Hunger games who have all advertised through social media in order to gain the widest aufdience possible. 

Therefore, our team will create a trailer on Youtube, a twitter page and a Facebook page.

Visual Advertisement:

This form of advertisement had been used for years and s hugely successful if it is used in the right places and the visual aids are appealing. This includes posters, pictures and banners. These visual aids will be on buses, bus stops, motorway billboards and in newspapers. 



'Frank' Visual advertisement- Poster

Poster marketing in public:

Digital social media marketing- Twitter page

Evaluation Question 4 - Maximilian

Evaluation Question 3 - Maximilian

Evaluation Question 2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

By: Maximilian

Teenagers - are often shown as either being vulnerable, depressed and insane or loud, obnoxious or out of control. In our opening we represent the stereotype of him being mentally insane and also reckless because of him killing his mother, but this could be seen as the cause of a build up of stress which has resulted him into killing his mother.






Gender- Males are usually represented as being more dominant and more violent than females. We conformed to this stereotype as the male character has killed the female character being he mum which also conforms to the stereotype that females are weaker than men. Also it was easier to portray the man as the psychotic killer since in most movies e.g (The Machinist, 2004, Brad Anderson) they have the male character being mental. We decided to kill a female in our film because it represents the stereotype that females mostly become the victims of murders and crimes.



In Donnie Darko (2001, Richard Kelly) we have a mentally unstable teenager who can see an imaginary person called Frank which he kills at the end but he subliminally doesn't know that. We can relate Donnie to our main character called Frank because of them both wearing dark clothing, having scary yet expressionless faces, and because of their mental states since they both have killed someone.  

Evaluation Question 1 Maximilian

audience feedback

Final Thriller Opening

Construction Post - Editing

Upon collecting all our raw footage, we had to use final cut pro to create our thriller opening. At the start it was hard to understand how to work the program and how we were supposed to create our project but because of our previous preliminary task, we as a group collaborated and help each other so that we could understand what we wanted to achieve. We all knew what we wanted our thriller film to look like in the end but we still had to make slight tweaks to what positions our raw footage was to be put in. As shown in the photo above, we had to use masses of raw footage that had to be extremely cut down into a couple seconds so that the film flowed and looked professional. in addition to this we can see the titles and fade transitions that have been used so that we could create tension and so that the film looked like it was made by professionals. 

We also had to introduce our music and sound effects which we had to overlap onto our raw footage and onto different music. this was a difficult task for us since we struggled in trying to match the music with the scenes to create the up most tension where it climax' at the end.  

Soundtrack

Music/soundscapes

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMp7ooAryLA - Dark ambient, suspenseful soundscape

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVXyDYEUdRg - into the depths – suspenseful soundscape

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7NpG1I0i-c - Scary ambient, creepy, mysterious soundscape

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djQvjW0lEX8  - The Maze runner,

Triumphant/ thriller music

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3-YGVb6Tbw - Gravity theme – triumphant/thriller music/ Build up

6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmL9FfEWjrc - Final chosen soundtrack

Our choices of songs were quite similar in most aspects as they were all soundscapes, which I felt would work best for our thriller opening. They were quite dark and mysterious which was the right feel for our opening, as upbeat or even climatic music wouldn't work, as our character is not shown to be in any sort of climatic situations. However one soundscape I compared our choices to was one from the film ‘Gravity’ in which the sounds begin quiet and calm, then getting progressively climatic, this type of sound had potential to work well with our piece as it begin s calm with ‘Frank’ simply walking to/around his house, but climaxes when we see the bloody arm.

The main influences of our choice of music (5 & 6) were very useful as they showed us what types of music was used in actual thriller films. The music from ‘The Maze Runner’ was useful in demonstrating how music can be used at a faster pace to show suspense or even triumph in a scene using an array of sounds, mainly by including strings. However the opening music in the video (5) we found was far to triumphant for a thriller opening like ours so we wanted something far more mysterious that didn’t make the opening too much like a horror film.

The theme music for ‘Gravity’ was very influential in our final decision because it showed more of a build up in the music and how that can be used to create suspense and build up to a certain point in a scene. The music begins very quiet with few string instruments playing, showing more of a peaceful atmosphere but the music gradually built up, intruding more and more instruments however, this was again too triumphant for a film like ours but the idea of a gradual build up would be useful for similar music for our opening.

Sound 1

I felt that the first song would work well for our opening as it gave it the most ominous/mysterious feel without making the opening seem to much like a horror opening. That was the main problem in finding suitable music for our opening, the mystery and dark atmosphere around the footage gave a danger of it becoming a horror opening so we had to find a suitable sound that would help maintain this mysterious atmosphere, while keeping the thriller genre.

The music is a soundscape and was easily accessible to us as long as we simply emailed the copyright holder for permission to use it first, this did not appear to be a problem as it was evident in the comments of the video on YouTube that many people to

Sound 2

The second song we found was similar to our first one as it was a soundscape, however this one had a range of horror like sounds (e.g. short high pitched string sounds and mysterious whispers). I felt that parts of the soundscape could have been useful for our piece however the majority of it had too much of am horror like aspect.

Sound 3

I felt that sound 3 was far too horror like for our opening and would instantly make it sound like horror opening because as the music progressed, it had a lot of sudden high pitched string sounds which conformed to those used in horror films

Sound 4

The actual music we decided on (6) I found was most effective because is had the right balance of mystery and suspense for our opening. The music is mainly piano with the addition of some string instruments that is played at as fast yet casual pace but builds as the song plays. I believe this was the most effective music as the building up towards the end correlated well with our opening as it first appears calm with Frank walking towards his house, but the suspense builds and builds as we see things like the bloody hammer.  This means that the music would appear casual at first but would build up as the suspense of our thriller builds up.

 Audience feedback of chosen soundscapes

For our audience feedback we asked 2 people questions about the different soundscapes we chose and which ones they believed worked best. They were shown around 30-60 seconds of each piece of music and then answered a series of questions

Questions

• Which of the 4 soundscapes did you think was most effective?
• Do you think they conveyed he right amount of suspense?
• After seeing our thriller opening, which sound do you think would work best?Why?
• What elements did you think worked best in the soundscape you chose for the previous question?

Production

-FILMING PROCESS-

Props

The broken picture frame was a symbol of the murder of Frank's mother. To produce this we smashed a glass frame with a hammer and inserted a photo of Max as a baby and his mother which would be Frank and his mother in our opening. We placed some pieces of broken glass on the floor to reveal that the frame must have fallen to the floor during the violence of the murder. We also painted the frame with red paint which of course resembled Frank's mothers blood.

As Patrick washed the dishes we included the bloody murder weapon of the hammer. For this prop Max carefully brushed red paint on the hammer head. 

Production

-FILMING PROCESS-

Makeup and Acting

The scene in which the mother's bloody arm hangs out of the bath tub reveals that our main character has committed murder and hopefully leads an audience to feel slightly tense and feel a sense of unease.
The process of creating a bloody disfigured arm surprisingly took quite a long time as the fake blood would not dry on Catherine's arm which resulted in just using paint which dried instantly although it did not come off her arm for a week. 
Max printed bloody hand prints on her arm which made it seem as though Frank had violently grabbed his mother's arm before killing her.

              

For Patrick's makeup I drew inspiration from the film 'We need to talk about Kevin'

as I thought that the main character's makeup was perfect for the portrayal of a teenage psychotic murderer.  

   We wanted our main character to seem tired and slightly drained from the murder of his mother. Before filming I applied a pale foundation to his face and brushed red dark brown eyes shadow under his eyes which would create the illusion that he was tired.

         

We wanted the ending scene to be the most climatic point of the opening. Therefore, we wanted to ensure Patrick's acting created such an impact that the audience would be frightened. We worked on his facial expressions and gestures so that he would embody the character of Frank.

Construction

FILMING PROCESS 

Lighting 

During the filming process we encountered a few technical problems that we did not think of during the pre- production process. 

For example, we were originally going to film our outside scenes during the day, however we realised later on that the opening would convey a much more tense atmosphere and a sense of pathetic fallacy if we filmed during the evening when it was darker.                                                                                                                                      

Therefore, we filmed both during the day and later that evening in order to compare the two and evaluate which one worked best.

  We finally chose to use the shots that we filmed during the day as it creates normality for the audience and greater tension can be created as the stark contrast will be presented in the dimly lit room with the flashing of the dead body part.

A problem we had whilst filming during the day was the reflection of Max as he filmed Patrick in front of the porch. Therefore, we decided to remove one of the close up shots of Patrick as the reflection ruined the shot. 

It was essential that we created darkness within the house as this was the location of the brutal killing of Frank's mother. The dark lighting would therefore create a sombre atmosphere and symbolise the death. 

For this lighting we turned all the lights off in the house and solely used our LED lighting. We used the key light of large LED lights as well as a video LED light lamp. This meant that there was only a fraction of light in the hall way which enables the audience to see our main character, however not his face.  For the bathroom scene we used iPhone lights as back lights as we wanted to highlight Patrick acting whilst the whole room was in darkness. The absence of light creates an air of tension and mystery.

Titles and Credits

Opening credit lists the most important members of the production and they also usually mention the major actors, guest stars, producers and director. So for our Thriller opening we decided to include our own names and other names that were not included to make our opening look more official. Opening credits are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the film, so we had to decide which category our titles would fall in. 

Problems that we had with out Titles is that we didn't know what font or where they should be place on the screen to compliment out Psychological Thriller opening so we decided to look at other relate-able Thriller films to help. 

In the film Se7en (1995, David Fincher) we have the titles being superimposed over the top of the action and placed to the near right of the screen so it is centre framed. Also the font is almost hand written and doubled over so it looks more freaky and unsettling. 

In Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese) we have the titles being on a blank screen with the font being very static and blocky which contrasts to Se7en's more handwritten font. In addition, the title is centre frame and is bright red which could symbolise and foreshadow danger and violence. 

In Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) we also have the titles appearing onto blank screens but his have also been animated to fit in with the title sequence to confuse the audience. The font is more basic than the other films but because it isn't as flashy or complicated, its effect of making the audience uncomfortable is still there. 

PRODUCTION

Construction of filming process:

Communication

Communication via messaging was vital before filming so that we would all arrive at the location at the same time and have enough time to film everything we needed. We texted each other and arranged who was bringing what including the makeup, costume, props, lighting, camera and tripod.