Question 8 - Progression continued

During the whole production, we had imrpoved all of your skills.
- camera
-lighting
-planning
-mise-en-scene
-soundtrack
-editing

I am going to compare skills we had before when we did prilim and now :

Evaluation- Question 8 continued.

We have done a previous blog as a whole group, with video blogs of us all as a group talking about what we've learnt, how we improved from our prelim film to where we are now having produced out thriller opening. We talked about improvement in mise-en-scene, sound, camera skills and editing skills using Livetype, Soundtrack pro, Final cut pro and Handbrake. Here are a few comparisons and improvements we've made from our prelim to our final opening.

Prelim.     Thriller opening.

Here as you can see our prelim was shot in one of the common rooms in our college, so we didn't think to much or creativley about our mise-en-scene. However for our thriller we made a concious decision to film in an old dance studio which used to be a church as this has connotations with the Black Swan. They are both long shots, but in our prelim shot there are others in the background, for our thriller we have made sure everything is out of the way and as professional looking as possible.

Prelim.    Thriller opening.



Here we have two close ups of the main characters in each sequence, Reem in the prelim, and Eleni in the thriller. This is a perfect example of the improvement within props and setting. In the prelim we used a coat hanger as our weapon, and in the thriller in the second half of the bedroom scene, our main prop was the doll our character was obsessed with. Our choice of props have become more realistic and convincing, as killing someone with a coat hanger wouldn't usually happen.

Prelim.   Thriller opening.

Here we have used the same technique as we did for our prelim, which was to put the camera on the floor and created a more interesting effect for the audience. Having experimented in our prelim we realised this worked for us so we planned to use this technique in our thriller, which we did.

Prelim.                             Thriller opening.

Here are two shots which both included using a mirror. In our prelim as we didn't have much time to plan or think about it properly, we had things in our mise-en-scene which we didn't want such as bags, coats in the background, sink etc, however with the shot to the right which is in our thriller we made for everything was out of the way and only the lamp, the character and the writing on the mirror could be seen. Our editing of this part in our thriller took up alot of time as we included white flashes, overlapping and fast motion.



Here is an animation of some of our overlapping shots, an editing effect we used majorly throughout our thriller.

Using final cut pro, something we didn't know how to do when making our prelim, we overlapped nearly all our shots which gave it a creepier and more impressive effect. We went down to the bottom of the software and clicked on the symbol with the squiggly line, (shown to the left) which overlapped as many shots as you wanted, the most we went to was 3 shots at one point, but no more than that otherwise it'll get too confusing.

Here is a wordle of what i think teamwork is all about.

Working as a team is so important when it comes to creating something, especially something as hard as a thriller opening. You need to make sure everyone has a role to play, everyone is involoved and doing their best, fullfiling their full potential, otherwise it'll go downhill. Our team are organised, respectful and are always there for one another so we were always comfortable and safe where ever we were, whether we were planning, editing, filming and just discussing. I want to say thank you to Mary and Dan for helping us through it, and of course to Klaudia, Reem and Valeza (:

Question 8: continued.

My group previously uploaded a video on this blog earlier today comparing our final thriller opening with one of the first preliminary films we made together as a group.

There were a lot of differences between the two sequences, and in watching them, we could really see the differences and development in our editing and production techniques over time.

Our skills with editing have improved massively since the beginning of the course: initially, we just used the basic skills of editing such as jump cuts and a various range of shots, whereas later, we learned to use different techniques such as over layering shots and creating a flickering white light in order to make the overall effect more suspenseful and/or suitable to the specific genre. (supernatural thriller)

At the beginning, we had problems with continuity and lighting; the editing did not run as smoothly as we would have liked (we fixed this problem as we improved in our skills while using final cut pro) The lighting was also too harsh and made the prelim look tacky and unprepared, we took particular care in the lighting used for our final project as we realised it's importance in setting the entire atmosphere of the movie, by creating menacing shadows etc.

There were a lot of errors in the prelim: as we were not used to filming, and we didn't have much time, there were often times when the actors as well as the crew would laugh or do something unprofessional.
The music we used was also very amature in comparison to the final choice of music used in the final production.

Finally, our choice of Mise en Scene was drastically different in the prelim and final production, initially, we hadn't planned which props to use or where the camera should be placed to get the most effective shot (e.g. we used a coat hanger as a murder weapon in the prelim as we couldn't find anything better at such short notice) As we developed our understanding, we came to realise the importance of props and other small differences to the final presentation of the production.

Evaluation- Progression: Question 8.

Evaluation - Question 6 (continued)

Audience feedback

Evaluation - Question 4 & 5.

Our thriller would be distributed by a small independent studio with good equipment but a low budget called CANDI studios. it is our colleges media institution which provides training and equipment for low budget film makers. places it will be released on will be things such as vimeo, blogger and facebook. we will also have a cinema screening to collate valuable feedback from other film makers in order to improve our film making skills in the future. moreover, people such as our family and friends will also see it on a dvd copy that we will receive.

Other Media Students Thriller & Their Feedback:

The internet has been used to launch the short thriller opening to a wider audience, this thriller opening has has 326 views which means that they were able to get more feedback. We are currently in the process of putting our thriller opening also on youtube but we have started off with facebook where only our friends and family are able to see but also vimeo which is accessible to anyone. 

This thriller opening has a lot more views and has valuable feedback. Also other media students have begun comparing theirs in the comments in order to progress in their filming skills and to also be able to target a wider audience. 

Question 6- audience feedback.(continued)

Today we saw the thriller movie openings of every media group in college, some were really funny but they were generally much better than i expected. Here are a few videos i took of the viewers' reactions to our opening there were mostly positive comments, but also some constructive criticism about our thriller, which will be very helpful for any future media projects i might want to do.