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.

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.

   

Evaluation- Question 7: Timeline.

Timeline of technology used during research and filming of our thriller opening:

• cameras
• learning how to use blogger and search engines (e.g. google)
• learning how to blog videos, pictures, links etc.
• more detail with cameras
• using livetype
• soundtrack pro
• final cut pro
• digital camera, tripod, lighting
• memory card and video drive

   

Questions 4&5- institutions+distribution/attract+adressing audience

Here is a student movie that has been uploaded onto the internet (through youtube) and has had quite a large amount of views (39,677 so far). The internet has been used to launch this short movie to a wider audience, and it is now an award-winning title; Youtube is a very popular website used to promote all sorts of videos. It is available to anyone in the world with internet access and it is therefore a very good place to upload videos if you want your movie to be noticed by a wider audience.

My movie is also a low budget student film, the production company for the movie is Candi Studios; a small independent institution which specialises  in low-budget student films, as it has good equipment but low production budgets. 

Distribution so far:

The film has already been released over the internet on Vimeo, and on blogger (through this blog) also it has been uploaded on to facebook in order to gain some audience feedback from our peers. My group and i also plan to upload it onto youtube in order to give people from other cities or countries a chance to see it; potentially our movie opening could reach a global audience!

My movie (opening) will have a cinema screening at a local independent cinema The Screen on the Green, also it will be released on DVD for my peers and family (also other members of the other media students' family etc.) to have a shared screening experience.

Who is the audience for my media product? Question 3.

Evie, 21, an English Literature student in university, loves going to the theatre to see musicals or the ballet, has a passion for vintage clothes, spends too much money on make-up and likes going out for a drink with friends.

 

Here are some of Evie's possessions; things she has lying around her room:

- Books (for studying and pleasure)

- her favourite perfume

-collection of make-up 

-ring binders

-jewelry and beauty products

 These are the things she would have in her bag on a typical day:

- purse

-postit notes

-keys

-make-up (vaseline, compact powder, lipstick)

-notes on lectures etc.

-theatre ticket

-buisness card

-glasses

Question 6- audience feedback.

We uploaded our video on to a few members of our group's facebook pages today as our teacher thought it would be a good way of hearing more feedback from a group of people who are not necessarily studying media themselves and might therefore give us less technical advice and be able to experience it as someone who has not gone through the process of making a movie themselves.

Representation of social groups- Question 2.

The main character in the thriller will obviously be the little girl. Her character is largely influenced by the character of Nina in Black Swan. They are both portrayed as tortured artists (ballerinas) who express their feelings through dance; it is the only time they can truly be free.

Their characters are also similar in the sense that they are all alone in the world, which is clearly shown in these stills, with them being alone and isolated in an empty room or corner, and the camera is tilted slightly so that it seems as if they have a lower status; they are presented as being vulnerable, which which is similar to the usual stereotypes and generalisations of women in the media. The bland colours of brown and grey, as well as the dim lighting enhance the idea of them being lonely as these particular colours are usually associated with emptiness.

Only one character is shown in our thriller opening, however, two sides of this character are portrayed; in the beginning she is a tortured artist; bursting with talent and passion for dance, but in the second half, a more mean, mentally deranged side to the girl is brought out. This goes against the stereotype of girls being vulnerable and cute, and this change in personality is represented also in 'The Orphan' with the protagonist Esther rapidly changing her personality from a sweet little orphan girl to a deranged, sadistic 30-year-old woman. We wanted to have this psychotic element to our thriller also, and so the representations of our protagonist was largely influenced by Esther in The Orphan.

How a character is represented to the audience is largely based on visual cues for example through costume and mise en scene. In general, the colour black is associated with dark, evil things; when there is lots of dark colours in a particular scene of a movie, the audience can sense something bad will soon happen. In comparison, white has connotations for purity, innocence and peace. The Black Swan uses these colours as mental triggers for when something bad will happen, also to signify when the character will act good or evil. We went against these representations in our opening as we used a white rather than black night dress for when the girl is clearly show to be a bit psychotic, however we used a black tutu in the beginning in order to foreshadow that something bad will happen later, or circumstances will soon change.

Forms and conventions of thriller title sequences- Question 1.

 While making our thriller sequence we had to consider the forms and conventions of other thriller opening sequences in order to make ours look authentic. I have already blogged about this topic previously, but not in reference to the specific conventions of thriller movie openings, so here are some shots from our opening which were particularly influenced by the conventions of others thrillers:

(Above and right) here we intertextualised  a shot from the Black swan movie; the close-up of the main character's face, particularly her eyes, builds suspense as you can see her expression clearly.

(above, right) In both these shots,  the location is established; in both cases, you cannot clearly see the location and therefore are left with a sense of mystery and suspense; a key convention of thriller movies.

(above, right) We also used this shot of just the pointe shoes as we thought this shot was particularly effective at building the suspense; due to the fact that we don't see the character's face, from this we can interpret that ballet is very important to her, possibly the only good thing in her life.

(left) The sound we used changed many times throughout the process of making the opening; initially, we used the music from a music box that we recorded ourselves, but in the end, we realised that a slow, creepy dancing tune would be best to portray both the dancing element and the supernatural/psychological sub-genres of the thriller, and we only used the music box tune for the very end, to build the tension and uneasiness.

(right) I think the titles used in our title sequence were very effective as we set them to appear in the specific order that they usually appear in all film openings, e.g. the production company comes first, the title is in the middle, and the director comes at the end of the opening.





(above, left) Our titles were mainly inspired by the titles of Se7en. We used a similar flickering effect, and the same colour for the words when the appear and exit the screen, we initially also wanted to use a childlike font similar to Se7en, but we came to realise that a simple serif font would be more effective and more fitting with the Victorian theme running throughout.